Archive for April, 2008

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Electing Slogans

I’ve been at Sydney University now for over six years, including five years as a full-time student with full voting rights whenever any elections were held. So I’m not exactly new to the phenomenon of the stupid election slogan, but I still can’t help but wince any time I see fresh paint in the graffiti [...]

3 Comments » - Posted in Education,Politics,University by jangari

Monday, April 21st, 2008

I really like these

…and I might just use them when teaching syntax in a few weeks’ time. Via the Speculative Grammarian.

3 Comments » - Posted in Art,English,Humour,Languages,Linguistics,Syntax by jangari

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Liberal

Does anyone know how something that literally translates as ‘dislike of hand’ could be paraphrasable as ‘liberal’? In the data massaging for the Kaurna electronic dictionary that I spoke of back here, I’ve come across a term whose internal parts indeed come from the words for ‘dislike’ and ‘hand’. I’m certain it’s not a typo, [...]

7 Comments » - Posted in English,History,Indigenous,Kaurna,Languages,Lexicography,Linguistics,Semantics by jangari

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

Health and Houses

Over the past 10 months or so, I’ve made it clear that housing, in my opinion, is one of the most important factors of indigenous affairs right now. The state of the vast majority of dwellings in most aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and probably elsewhere is quite honestly despicable. Despite this raw fact, [...]

1 Comment » - Posted in Health,Housing,Indigenous,Politics,The Intervention by jangari