Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 23

• Always look on the bright side of life.

  By ljd42 on September 12, 2022

  

  My friends tell me that I am an incurable optimist. That’s OK. I don’t want to be cured. I want to remain an optimist; I’m happier that way. As Eric Idle sang in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, you should… Read More ›

• A “newish” Agatha Christie…plus a golden oldie

  By ljd42 on September 11, 2022

  

  There was, of course, no doubt: I had to watch the 2018 BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Ordeal by Innocence, even though I hadn’t (and still haven’t) read the original. The movie is adapted from a 1958 novel, one of… Read More ›

• We just can’t stay away!

  By ljd42 on September 9, 2022

  

  Barbara and I seem to go to the Ashmont Grill more often than some people would expect. But we just can’t stay away! Last night, being a Thursday, was Buck-a-Shuck, so Barbara started with a dozen delicious oysters. I started… Read More ›

• Nasty, brutish, and short

  By ljd42 on September 7, 2022

  

  If you don’t recognize the title of this post, it probably means that you didn’t pay attention in your college philosophy class! Or perhaps your professor just didn’t teach you about Hobbes (that’s Thomas Hobbes, not Calvin and). That’s right,… Read More ›

• Tell me again why you want to be a schwa. Perhaps it’s because you think it’s never stressed? Well, think again!

  By ljd42 on September 5, 2022

  ə and ʌ: If you know those two symbols, can you hear the difference? (If you don’t know them, think about the English word above. It has two vowel sounds (as the third vowel letter is silent): the first is… Read More ›

• Flicka’s toes

  By ljd42 on September 3, 2022

  

  Flicka is showing off her stripey nose and her extra toes:

• Trust what you read! (On second thought…)

  By ljd42 on September 2, 2022

  

  You might not be familiar with a certain gastronomic website, The Passionate Foodie. If you do know it, you probably go to it for excellent advice about food and drink, as well as interesting articles about the history of food… Read More ›

• The Taking of Pelham 123 and The Taking of Pelham 123!

  By ljd42 on August 31, 2022

  

  No, that is not a misprint. And no, I didn’t watch the same movie twice—although I’ve been known to do that with a very few carefully selected movies. In this case it’s simply that I watched two versions: the 1974… Read More ›

• How has Phillips Academy Andover changed in a little over half a century?

  By ljd42 on August 30, 2022

  

  Cover of Andover Magazine, August 1968: Cover of Andover Magazine, Summer 2022:

• Dinner at The Bowery

  By ljd42 on August 29, 2022

  

  Barbara and I had dinner last night on the beautiful patio of The Bowery in Lower Mills. Lobster roll with gigantic tater tots for her, properly cooked (i.e. rare, as ordered) steakhouse burger with side salad for me. Good food… Read More ›

• It’s not Hillbilly Elegy. Fortunately.

  By ljd42 on August 28, 2022

  

  Let’s suppose Hillbilly Elegy were a novel, i.e. fiction. And suppose its author, J.D. Vance, were an honest writer. Then Hillbilly Elegy would turn into Lady Chevy. Of course Hillbilly Elegy is actually a memoir, not a novel. And J.D…. Read More ›

• Bad linguistics is bad science. Is it also bad politics?

  By ljd42 on August 24, 2022

  

  You might think that the subject that we call linguistics is purely academic—in both senses of the word. But of course linguistics is also political, as is seen in all the controversies about pronouns, Ebonics, and PC language. This post,… Read More ›

• More about “There’s no word for X in language Y.”

  By ljd42 on August 21, 2022

  All too often I hear (or read) that “there’s no word for ________________ in __________” for some particular word and some particular language. I wrote about this kind of claim three years ago. I think I need to quote that… Read More ›

• Superintelligence?

  By ljd42 on August 19, 2022

  Probably this debate is esoteric enough for you. But let’s see. We start with a remark by Scott Aaronson on his Shtetl-Optimized Blog: Last month, you’ll recall, Steve [Pinker} and I debated the implications of scaling AI models such as GPT-3 and… Read More ›

• RIP Vincent, 2004–2022

  By ljd42 on August 17, 2022

  

  Vincent died today. He could barely stand up, and he had almost entirely stopped eating. For his last meal he managed to eat a couple of teaspoons of chicken-flavored baby food. At the end he weighed 5.8 pounds. He was… Read More ›

• Nominal patterns

  By ljd42 on August 16, 2022

  

  My older niece is named Hannah. My younger niece is named Aviva. My older great-niece is named Eve. And now, as of last night, my younger great-niece is named Ada. Aha! Do you detect a pattern?

• Are we now in the Twilight Zone?

  By ljd42 on August 15, 2022

  

  This is not the only Twilight Zone episode that one never forgets. At least it’s not the only one that I never forgot, and it seems more and more relevant every year, especially this summer. I first saw it when… Read More ›

• He moved up in the world (from Providence to Brattleboro), changed his name, and then…

  By ljd42 on August 13, 2022

  

  And then he became the murder victim in Archer Mayor’s latest novel, Marked Man. Of course “moving up in the world” is a matter of opinion; I don’t mean that he moved north, although he definitely did do that. No… Read More ›

• Linguistics/math interface

  By ljd42 on August 12, 2022

  People keep wondering how I journeyed from linguistics to math. Maybe they’re the same thing:

• When you pronounce that middle consonant, do you hear z or s?

  By ljd42 on August 11, 2022

  

  How do you pronounce “Tesla”? Do you pronounce the middle consonant like a z, as the Italians do, or like an s, as it is spelled? Both pronunciations are “correct,” but how do you say it? Linguists will tell you… Read More ›

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