I'll call Ripley's.

That's so plausible I can't believe it!

Did you know that the word "calf" meaning a young animal and the word "calf" meaning the part of the leg are not related? According to OED, the animal word comes from Old English and is cognate with German Kalb. The origin of the body-part word is unknown, but may be related to Old Norse kálfi or Irish calpa.

Can we sign Bonds now?

Did you know that the word "calf" meaning a young animal and the word "calf" meaning the part of the leg are not related? According to OED, the animal word comes from Old English and is cognate with German Kalb. The origin of the body-part word is unknown, but may be related to Old Norse kálfi or Irish calpa.

That is really interesting to me, but I suspect many won't share that sentiment.

I thought that was interesting about the etymology of "calf." Miami, the city in Ohio, and Miami, the city in Florida, also have completely separate etymologies.

And I subscribe to the theory that the school in Ohio because it's older, should just be called "Miami" and the one in Florida should require a geographic qualifier.

Can we sign Bonds now?

No. Losing is more important.

You'll have better luck signing Michael Vick.

So no.

That is really interesting to me, but I suspect many won't share that sentiment.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I'm Indo-Europeanist so I eat this stuff up. On a linguistic note related to the one Bob Dernier mentioned, did you realize that the the word "muscle" is etymologically derived from the same root as "mouse" (Latin musculus -> PIE *mus[tlo], literally "tiny mouse"), reflecting the ancient proto-Indo-European understanding of muscles as analogous to little mice running around underneath the skin? No joke.

Our proto-Indo-European forefathers were totally ripped, apparently.

Is that the Austrian-derived "ripped," or the Irish?

I was thinking of the Austrian-derived version, but you've got a good point. They were probably ripped in the Irish sense too, given that we can reconstruct alcoholic drinks to the PIE vocabulary ("mead" would be the English word that can be traced all the way back to the PIE mother language).

They started Endy Chavez and Marlon Anderson at the corner OF spots tonight. So obviously, Casanova is the guy you want.

No. Losing is more important.

Someone needs to tell Minaya if he doesn't make the postseason this year that he's done for (which is probably the case anyway). Therefore, he wouldn't have any reason not to sign Bonds... that way, if it blows up in the worst possible way (the way that all the enlightened scribes see it playing out), it doesn't matter!

The Mets can't sign Bonds - it might disrupt the chemistry. They are sleeping peacefully and we wound not want to disturb them.

What is hilarious is that Bonds's detractors huffed and puffed about him not being able to play a full season. Well, Alou has played in 14 of the 44 games (32%) and will now miss the next 14 or so games, meaning that he'll have played in 14 of the 58 games (24%) when he comes off the DL. And that's assuming he's able to play by then.

Meanwhile, Alou has put up a 102 OPS+, Pagan a 92 OPS+, Chavez a 7 OPS+, Anderson a 32 OPS+, and Clark a 78 OPS+.

Obviously Bonds would have done far, far worse than that combination. And even if he had played well, a team with him may well have been under .500 anyway due to the chemistry problems he'd create. And if Minaya and Randolph were to not win with him, well, they'd be out of their jobs.

Thankfully, all of that has been avoided, as the refusal to sign Bonds hasn't hurt the Mets at all. It's not like the Mets are under .500, in 4th place in the division, and in complete turmoil or anything. No controversies have swirled around the team.

What is hilarious is that Bonds's detractors huffed and puffed about him not being able to play a full season.

Not me. I don't want to sign Bonds because I'll come very close to stopping following the Mets rather than deal with the lunacy of his presence in the press every damn day.

But it's already been revealed I'm not a real fan because I think starting fights in games is retarded. Do your worst.

The Mets selected the contract of catcher-first baseman Raul Casanova from Triple-A New Orleans.

Everyone's missing the bright spot here- Raul Casanova can play first base! Who knew?

Everyone's missing the bright spot here- Raul Casanova can play first base! Who knew?

Plus, the Alou-Casanova swap makes the Mets younger!

And I subscribe to the theory that the school in Ohio because it's older, should just be called "Miami" and the one in Florida should require a geographic qualifier.

And I subscribe to the theory that the school in California, PA, because it's older, should just be called "California" and the one in Berkeley, CA should require a geographic qualifier.

And please keep the etymological stuff coming. I love it, too.

This means I now have 7 injured players on my fantasy team.

I'll be taking questions about Indo-European language change in this thread for as long as anyone wants to ask me!

For the record, the major Indo-European language families are:

- Anatolian (Hittite, an extinct family, but highly significant since it's the earliest known by far)
- Tocharian (also extinct, but incredibly fascinating since it's the easternmost I-E language - from modern day China - and it's much more similar to the Western I-E tongues like Celtic and Italic than it is to Indo-Aryan or Iranian)
- Indo-Aryan (Hindi, Urdu, etc.)
- Iranian (Iranian, Kurdish, Pashto, Ossetian, etc.)
- Baltic (Lithuanian, Latvian, the extinct Old Prussian)
- Slavic (Russian, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, etc. Old Church Slavonic is more or less proto-Slavic itself, before the languages split)
- Celtic (Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, ancient Gaulish)
- Germanic (English, German, Dutch, Icelandic, Danish, etc.)
- Italic (Latin plus its descendants like Spanish, Romanian, French, etc.)
- Hellenic (Greek plus some other dead languages like old Macedonian)
- Armenian (an isolate family, and weird-ass language, having been radically reshaped by its neighbors)
- Albanian (an isolate, though scholars have a field day attempting to connect it to either the relatively unattested ancient extinct families of Illyrian or Thracian)
- The following language families are only weakly attested from ancient times, so little is really known about how they fit in among the rest: Thracian, Illyrian (Albanian may be a survivor), Dacian, Phrygian, Messapic

Some propositions about the relationships between these groups are uncontroversial: for example, it is universally accepted that Indic and Iranian were once the same language and people (the first attested forms of each, Sanskrit and Avestan, are practically dialectal variants of one another). A majority of scholars hold that Baltic and Slavic have the same sort of common descent, though this is not unanimous by any means. Italic and Celtic clearly had an extensive period of shared side-by-side development, although few accept the idea of "Italo-Celtic" anymore. Armenian is more closely related to Greek than any other I-E language, suggesting that the Armenians originated in the Balkans near the proto-Greeks before moving off into their historical seat. And the Anatolian languages are so archaic in their phonology and grammar (Hittite doesn't even have a feminine gender!) that many think they might have left the PIE fold before PIE really became PIE...in other words, Anatolian was a sister language to Proto-Indo-European.

Finnish, Estonian, and Magyar (Hungarian), while geographically European, are from an unrelated language superfamily, that of Finno-Ugric. As for Basque Not only is it not Indo-European, it's incredibly, ridiculously ancient, spoken by a group who have been living in the Pyrenees since long before the dawn of recorded history...plausibly the descendant of a language spoken by the first human inhabitants of Europe.

Thus ends my splurge of language didacticism.

P.S. Fire Willie.

about the fire willie, how long is it going to take for the two managers that need to be fired more than anything in baseball to happen, Yost and Willie should not now be managing a major league team, I don't care what anyone says, they both need to go for the betterment of their team

Finnish, Estonian, and Magyar (Hungarian), while geographically European, are from an unrelated language superfamily, that of Finno-Ugric.

How true this is I'm not sure, but my best friend (whose father was born in Hungary), told me that Finnish and Hungarian are similar because both are decended from the language of a tribe that originally lived in the Russian steppes. The migrated to Europe, and some went south and some north, and those groups became the Finns and Magyars (Hungarians). But the language is more Asian than anything...

How true this is I'm not sure, but my best friend (whose father was born in Hungary), told me that Finnish and Hungarian are similar because both are decended from the language of a tribe that originally lived in the Russian steppes.

The other languages in the Finno-Ugric family are from north of there - Northern Russia/Siberia - so that story makes sense, albeit with the original tribes' location a bit off. Unless, of course, the tribes were from the Russian steppes and subsequent invaders pushed the Finno-Ugric speakers north.

How true this is I'm not sure, but my best friend (whose father was born in Hungary), told me that Finnish and Hungarian are similar because both are decended from the language of a tribe that originally lived in the Russian steppes. The migrated to Europe, and some went south and some north, and those groups became the Finns and Magyars (Hungarians). But the language is more Asian than anything...

This is pretty much right. The sister group of Finno-Ugric is Samoyedic from Siberia, and together they form the Uralic family (the terms "Uralic" and "Finno-Ugric" are sometimes used interchangeably, which can lead to some confusion. Suffice it to say that they are all genetically related to one another.) As the name suggests, this group is spread out around either side of the Ural mountains in north-central Russia.

I would caution against describing Finno-Ugric as "Asian more than anything" however, since it has nothing to do with other well-known Asian language families like Altaic (which includes Mongolian and Turkish), Sino-Tibetan (which includes Chinese and Tibetan), or Korean and Japanese (two fairly unclassifiable languages).

Ridiculous question (but its 4am and I am about to sleep, so screw it) from a non-linguist (but someone who studies history, and thus finds this interesting)...

If, knowing what you know now, you could start from scratch and grow up in the same places and conditions but swap English for another language spoken by you and everyone what would that be?

The Mets can't sign Bonds - it might disrupt the chemistry. They are sleeping peacefully and we wound not want to disturb them.

Can you imagine Barry Bonds and Billy Wagner in the same clubhouse? That would be something.

Not me. I don't want to sign Bonds because I'll come very close to stopping following the Mets rather than deal with the lunacy of his presence in the press every damn day.

You think it'd be worse than the lunacy we have now? At least with the Bonds lunacy we'd be *winning*.

Bonds and Wagner get along actually. When Barry hit a home of Billy a couple years ago his comments in the paper were quite complimentary of how good of a pitcher Billy is. There's no reason they can't get along. That one is a white southerner, the other a West coast black, is pretty irrelevant, unless you're a racist who thinks white southerners are all racist.

Uralic Komi and Mari are also Finno-Urgic. Fire Omar.

Uralic Komi and Mari are also Finno-Urgic.

Esa Tikkannen was a p#!^k. I don't care where his tribe was from.

You think it'd be worse than the lunacy we have now? At least with the Bonds lunacy we'd be *winning*.

We've had this discussion ad nauseum already, Dial. To me, yes, it would be worse. I'd rather struggle along, just my personal opinion. What we have now isn't lunacy, it's incessant angst and whining. Way different.

21 was fun.

about the fire willie, how long is it going to take for the two managers that need to be fired more than anything in baseball to happen, Yost and Willie should not now be managing a major league team

My knowledge of Yost pretty much begins and ends with Harveys' take on him.

Randolph is an absolutely atrocious manager right now
Early on he was a terrible tactical manager, but the players and others in the organization seemed to like and respect him. And everything seemed to go right in 2006 (until the very very end).

For more than a year now he's done an amazing impersonation of a bitter old misanthrope, as far as I can tell (as an outsider) he's completely lost the team, and he's still a godawful tactical manager, and he has no talent evaluation ability to speak of.

He has to go, and when he does get fired you can bet that most of his team will be relieved (though none- except possibly Wagner, will admit it openly).

The other problem is clearly Minaya, the Mets have a core that can win, the problem is that core is being dragged down by players who suck. That's Minaya's fault.

this stuff about barry bonds disrupting "team chemistry" is all press hysteria. like the mets got any "team chemistry" right now.

the only problem with barry on a team would be all the trouble the media would try to cause, going to different guys, trying to get them to say something bad about barry. it's the media got a problem. and actually, unless there really IS collusion (which i strongly suspect) the smartest thing minaya could possibly do is to sign barry lamar because he take all the heat offn himself and willie

as for barry and billy wags, i would be REAL surprised if they had any problem because barry is not the kind of guy billy would have any problem with. really, in the past 10-15 years, the only major leaguer barry has had any sort of problem with is that all around nice guy and great teammate jeff kent.

and barry has said on the record more than once - i NEVER disrespect the pitcher. when i'm at the plate, they're all randy johnson to me.

i have never NEVER, not once, heard barry say disrespecful things about opposing pitchers

Forget Bonds. Eric Byrnes is the proven winner the Mets need. He's better than Shawn Green, I promise.

I'm with Lassus on Bonds and JPWF on Randolph. The problem is, who do you plug in to replace Willie who has a reasonable chance of turning things around this season? Nobody currently on staff that I see - Jerry Manuel and Willie seem cut from the same cloth in temperament. While we all hear good things about Oberkfell, I can't see him coming up and leading this mostly veteran team to a significant turnaround in his first four months as a major league manager. If you don't want to write off the season, does bringing back a Bobby Valentine or Davey Johnson float anyone's boat?

levski, I swear to God, I'm gonna go and get the hose.

EDIT: Bringing Bobby V back floats my boat all the way to Japan to pick him up. Davey Johnson too, but I think I can just use my car to get him.

EDIT EDIT: Someone has to get selling Valentine on this whole "savior of the Mets" angle. I bet that could motivate him.

about the fire willie, how long is it going to take for the two managers that need to be fired more than anything in baseball to happen, Yost and Willie should not now be managing a major league team, I don't care what anyone says, they both need to go for the betterment of their team

I was never a big fan of Randolph as a manager, but the problem with firing him is that he has a huge contract, no?

I think Omar needs to go also. The Delgado mis-signing and then trade was a debacle. Pedro looks like a mistake. The Beltran signing can't be viewed as a positive. The benches have been pretty terrible and the farm system is gutted. Failing to trade Heilman when he had significant value was a blunder. His only two good moves were the Maine and Perez trades. Omar's being overrated by everyone just because Phillips was very bad and Duquette was historically bad.

about the fire willie, how long is it going to take for the two managers that need to be fired more than anything in baseball to happen, Yost and Willie should not now be managing a major league team, I don't care what anyone says, they both need to go for the betterment of their team

Manager challenge trade!

I said this before, Banta, but Bobby Valentine is never never never EVER coming back to this freaking zoo of a city to manage when he loves Japan and is totally revered there.

I have no idea about Davey Johnson. Is he just too old now?

Johnson is 65, younger than Bobby Cox or Joe Torre and a little older than Charlie Manuel, Jim Leyland, and Tony LaRussa. So not too old, probably just perceived as having worn out his welcome in several jobs, if indeed he would still be interested in a major-league managerial job. Right now he is managing the Olympic Team and probably likes that better than the zoo that is MLB.

The Beltran signing can't be viewed as a positive.

I agree with you on the other, but signing an excellent defensive center fielder who's put up a 124 average OPS+ in his first 3 full seasons with the Mets isn't a positive? Tough crowd.

As for #29:

Bonds and Wagner get along actually. When Barry hit a home of Billy a couple years ago his comments in the paper were quite complimentary of how good of a pitcher Billy is. There's no reason they can't get along. That one is a white southerner, the other a West coast black, is pretty irrelevant, unless you're a racist who thinks white southerners are all racist.

Wags has a habit of ######## to the media about teammates seemingly at random. Bringing Barry Bonds into that clubhouse would seem like a good way of getting some money quotes out of Wagner. I have no idea where you got the racism angle. I didn't mention race in my post. So the only conclusion I can reach is that you're a troll.

The Beltran signing can't be viewed as a positive.

This statement is lunacy. Beltran has been the best CF in the NL during his time with the Mets. Name a CF who has provided more value from 2005-2008.

In the AL, there's only Sizemore -- since he's been more durable.

This thread needs less Mets, and more Indo-European reconstructive linguistics. Don't make me bust out with a discussion of Grimm's Law and how it revolutionized our understanding of phonological sound change in the Germanic languages. Suffice it to say that the words canine (derived from Latin canus) and hound (from Gmc., cf MHG hund) are both descended from the same PIE root, as are the English foot and the Latin pod, and Grimm's Law is the reason they don't look like it.

And I subscribe to the theory that the school in California, PA, because it's older, should just be called "California" and the one in Berkeley, CA should require a geographic qualifier.

So does everyone in the world except promoters of college athletics. The school is known as "Berkeley" or "UC Berkeley" to everybody else.

#40 Eamus Catulli -

Manager challenge trade!

Amusingly enough, this actually might work for both teams.

more Indo-European reconstructive linguistics

I couldn't agree more. For instance, again per OED, is "ball" really cognate with Greek φαλλος "phallus" (in the sense that both are things that are inflatable?) Is "field" (cognate with German "feld") purely a West Germanic word, or is it cognate much further back with Greek πλατυς, "broad" [as in "platypus" ("broad-footed one")]? Our national pastime offers many linguistic puzzles.

I remain adamant that Triple A manager Frank Kremblas has won with a good portion of the Brewer roster. All of the young players had good seasons playing for Kremblas, experienced winning with Kremblas, and the man has won at every level.

Yost hasn't won a d*mn thing at any level and is STILL living off being a coach, a COACH, for Bobby Cox. There is no comparison on their professional resumes. Kremblas has one, Yost does not.

Kremblas could pull a Harvey Kuenn for criss*kes and just tell the guys to "go out and play" and the team would take off. Players may not all be Mensa members but after enough games they can sense when their boss is overmatched. And by now they know he is a dead man walking.

Give it up Mr. Melvin. You goofed. Admit it and move on. Be a man about it........

So does everyone in the world except promoters of college athletics. The school is known as "Berkeley" or "UC Berkeley" to everybody else.

Or "Cal." Of course, it is the original University of California, and at one time was called "California" just as Michigan is Michigan or Indiana is Indiana.

I blame the ascendancy of UCLA and USC basketball and football in the 60s.

Can you imagine Barry Bonds and Billy Wagner in the same clubhouse? That would be something.

Some of Billy Wagner's comments on Bonds:

He's the villain of baseball," Mets closer Billy Wagner said. "His critics are having a field day with him. But when he steps on the field, he's produced. I admire him for being able to go out there on a daily basis with the grind, the media and the criticism. I've told him, 'At not one time in my life have I ever wanted to be Barry Bonds.

I've always admired him," Wagner said. "For him to take time out of his superstar life and talk to somebody like me and say, 'Hey, I like how you play and compete,' that meant a lot to me. It would be awful hard for me to say anything bad about Barry.

Emphasis mine.

The context for the above quote,

Wagner has seen Bonds beyond that wall. Wagner recalls breaking in with the Houston Astros in 1996 and striking out Bonds on three pitches in their first encounter. Later that season Wagner struggled briefly, and he wondered if he was long for the majors.

During an Astros-Giants series at Candlestick Park, Bonds dropped by the Houston clubhouse, pulled Wagner outside and spent an hour giving him a lecture on baseball and life. Wagner credits the pep talk for restoring his confidence and making him believe in himself. He's been a Bonds fan ever since.

During an Astros-Giants series at Candlestick Park, Bonds dropped by the Houston clubhouse, pulled Wagner outside and spent an hour giving him a lecture on baseball and life. Wagner credits the pep talk for restoring his confidence and making him believe in himself. He's been a Bonds fan ever since.

That's clearly fictitious - we've been told countless times that Bonds is the scourge of the earth, and no players can stand him.

The other problem is clearly Minaya, the Mets have a core that can win, the problem is that core is being dragged down by players who suck. That's Minaya's fault.

See, here's the problem with that - Willie selects his roster - not Minaya. We don't have three washed up second basemen because of Omar - we have them because of Willie. Even coming out of ST, Willie gets to select who goes north (he and Peterson). Not Omar.

I was never a big fan of Randolph as a manager, but the problem with firing him is that he has a huge contract, no?

So your position is: "Keep Randolph, pay him and keep losing." As opposed to "Fire Randolph, pay him and start winning"

Short answer "the problem with firing him is a huge contract": no.

This statement is lunacy. Beltran has been the best CF in the NL during his time with the Mets.

CONCUR. that's just a nutty comment.

Alou goodbye (for now)

#48 - Bob Dernier:

Is "field" (cognate with German "feld") purely a West Germanic word, or is it cognate much further back with Greek πλατυς, "broad" [as in "platypus" ("broad-footed one")]?

Yes, but not quite. The words "field" and "platus" ultimate trace back to different words in PIE, but they're words which are clearly derived from one another. Gk. platus (see also NE flat, Lith. platus, Skt. prthu) derives ultimately from the PIE *plthus "broad." On the other hand, NE "field" derives from OE feld/felda, which probably traces back to PIE *plthwiha "land, earth," the same root which gives us the Gk. place-name Plataia (as in the famous battle). They both were derived from semantic variants of "flat, broad" however.

N.B. Note that I haven't been able to properly represent the various accents that should be on these words (and especially the laryngeal "h" in PIE). Damned if I know how to get them in there.

Or "Cal." Of course, it is the original University of California, and at one time was called "California" just as Michigan is Michigan or Indiana is Indiana.
At least Indiana University outdates Indiana University of PA by ~50 years.

We had a brief linguistics encounter a couple of weeks ago but I can't remember what thread it would have been.
It's pretty cool how the Uralics got scattered about.

Even coming out of ST, Willie gets to select who goes north (he and Peterson). Not Omar.

Omar has the ultimate control over
1: who gets invited to camp
2; who gets signed
3: who gets DFA'd

In the past he has on rare occasion used the blunt tools at his disposal to force Willie's hand.
For instance with Alou going down they've called up Casanovva, no doubt at Willie's request.

Omar SHOULD have said no and called up Pascucci.

Why would anybody want to talk about the Willie & Omar show with the question in #26 hanging there?

I would choose French or Irish, neither of which I've ever studied. Though I've been told my French pronunciation is decent. My Irish is pretty much limited to the always appropriate "Ni thuigim."

To answer the question in a different way, I would give anything to be transported back in time to the Ancient World, with a tape recorder and a good stenographer, so I could collect good evidence of the Illyrian, Thracian, and Celtic languages. The last in particular; the Insular Celtic languages transformed so radically during the Dark Ages (beginning around AD 500-600) that they barely resemble what we know of their extinct Continental sisters (of which Gaulish is the most well-known, but really only from place and personal names plus a few inscriptions). Early or Proto-Celtic would look a hell of a lot more intelligible to Latin or German speakers than modern Irish and Welsh do. I get sad when I think about how much information is permanently lost to us.

P.S. Hysterical & Useless - congrats on being the first Radiohead username reference I've seen around here.

I'd choose that southern African clicking language, Sho, as featured in The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Chris Dial Posted: May 23, 2008 at 02:09 PM (#2792046)

During an Astros-Giants series at Candlestick Park, Bonds dropped by the Houston clubhouse, pulled Wagner outside and spent an hour giving him a lecture on baseball and life. Wagner credits the pep talk for restoring his confidence and making him believe in himself. He's been a Bonds fan ever since.

That's clearly fictitious - we've been told countless times that Bonds is the scourge of the earth, and no players can stand him.

- well it's true no players can stand him. that's why when he came into houston to play all the houston players who he chatted with who he seemed delighted to see were all faking it. and during the ASG when he was hugging guys and talking up a storm to guys at every base, it was all fake.

well, i gotta admit jeff kent wouldn't lower himself to pretending like the rest of them did

If, knowing what you know now, you could start from scratch and grow up in the same places and conditions but swap English for another language spoken by you and everyone what would that be?

Russian, so I could read Russian literature in the original. Спасибо!

Thanks, Not Eso. Though I don't post often, I've been a Yorkeist for many years.

I was never a big fan of Randolph as a manager, but the problem with firing him is that he has a huge contract, no?

So your position is: "Keep Randolph, pay him and keep losing." As opposed to "Fire Randolph, pay him and start winning"

Nope. I was actually just talking about why ownership may not be so quick to fire him. I don't follow the team closely enough to have an informed opinion on whether he _should_ be fired. Certainly from what I've seen he's not impressive, either tactically or with PR.

That said, as long as he's playing the right people, I don't see that the other stuff has much of an effect. Though if he has real influence over who ends up on the roster and has made bad calls there, that's another issue.

If he's really hurting the team, then he should be fired regardless of the contract.

You know your team is screwed when the choice between Val freakin' Pascucci and Raul Casanova is likely to matter or when your fans are clamoring for Val freakin' Pascucci to save your offense

#66 - Hysterical & Useless:

Thanks, Not Eso.

For the record, I am indeed Esoteric. I merely reincorporated my username into a Tom Waits song reference ("The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)").

And I am a longtime Radiohead obsessive, dating back all the way to 1995.

Omar has the ultimate control over
1: who gets invited to camp
2; who gets signed
3: who gets DFA'd

Fair enough. The constant precense of washed up second basemen just screams "Willie".

I would pick Spanish for Don Quixote and One Hundred Years of Solitude. Or would that do me no good with Don Quixote?

The constant precense of washed up second basemen just screams "Willie".

To a Chicagoan, it screams "Jim!"

Fair enough. The constant precense of washed up second basemen just screams "Willie".

Now just one minute, there, Dial. Are you saying he was a washed-up 2B? Even if he didn't make YOUR HOM ballot, that really isn't fair or accurate (if that's what you're implying). Willie was actually an above-average 2B for quite awhile. Unless you're saying he had a decline phase which is true of, er, everyone, isn't it?

#71: My take is there is probably somewhat less difference between Cervantes language and the modern variety than between his contemporary Shakespeare's English and what we read today. Though it's been quite a few years since I glanced at the Quijote.

#69: I knew the new handle was a song reference, but couldn't remember who was the perpetrator. And I confess I didn't catch up to Radiohead until '99, when I took a flyer on OK Computer (sound unheard). So I figure I'm not quick, but I've still got good instincts.

So I figure I'm not quick, but I've still got good instincts.
So kinda like the Bengie Molina of Music Appreciation?

So kinda like the Bengie Molina of Music Appreciation?

Given that I'm a music snob/obsessive who nevertheless prefers not to waste time with most modern music, figuring that I'll let time sort out the crap from the gold, this would actually be a perfect way to describe me. Damn clever, Edmundo.

For the record, Radiohead is not the greatest band of the '90s. They're the greatest band of the '00s. Pavement is the greatest band of the '90s.

And now: back to PIE language change.

Flying food and medical supplies into Myanmar would only disrupt the Burmese chemistry.

Continuing with the baseball etymologies, OED suggests that "glove" is cognate with Russian "lapa," which means "paw." More reasons for me to learn Russian. One of my favorite German words is "Handschuh" ("hand-shoe," i.e. "glove"); there are cognates in Dutch and Danish. The word "handscio" appears in Beowulf, but does not seem to have caught on in modern English. The Old Norse word is glófe. One Icelandic word for glove is "fingravettlingur," which would appear to analyze as "finger-mitten."

As someone who finds linguistics fascinating but has no knowledge... What is the consensus on Nostratic? How are "mixed" languages e.g. English, Swahili, etc classified? I mean obviously English is Indo-European but is it Germanic or Romance? And why?

#78 - Bob Dernier:

You are correct. As you no doubt know, there is one well know Proto-Indo-European word for "foot" found in nearly every single daughter language family, namely *pods. (NE foot, Lat pes, Lith padas 'sole of foot', Grk pous, Rus pod 'ground', Arm otn, Hit pata, Av pad-, Skt pad, Toch B paiyye)

But Rus lapa 'paw', however, derives from the OTHER, less widely attested word, *lehp-eh (e.g. ON lofi 'palm', Lith lopa 'paw', Kurdish lapka 'paw'). The relevant word here is the ON (Old Norse) lofi, which was probably joined with the collective prefix ga- to give ON and modern English a word, galofi, that literally means "all the hand."

Now just one minute, there, Dial. Are you saying he was a washed-up 2B?

No. Willie prefers to have second basemen on the roster as the "utility" guys. We had these three *plus* Gotay last year. I mean - you get 5 bench players, and Willie has three of them as second basemen. Because he thinks 2B are all that. He's a moron.

AlouGoodbye -

As someone who finds linguistics fascinating but has no knowledge... What is the consensus on Nostratic? How are "mixed" languages e.g. English, Swahili, etc classified? I mean obviously English is Indo-European but is it Germanic or Romance?

Nostratic is considered a farce by the vast majority of Indo-European linguists, who not only feel that long-range comparison over such spans of time (literally 10,000 years) is impossible given the speed with which languages change, but also think that most of the so-called "similarities" that Nostraticists point to between, say, Proto-Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic or Sino-Tibetan either evince a complete misunderstanding of their linguistic evolutions or are the result of sheer coincidence. The simple fact is that languages change so rapidly when under the influence of external forces (invasions, cultural assimilations, technological advances, whatever) that it becomes impossible to project with any confidence back beyond PIE. And even with regards to PIE the simple fact is that, for all the words we CAN reconstruct to the proto-language, there must be thousands and thousands more that were forever lost, or survive only in some of the languages (and thus cannot be reliably reconstructed to the proto-language through the comparative method). Time-depth is a #####.

As for "mixed" languages, there really is no such thing for the linguist with the exception of genuine creoles (of which Japanese might well be one, oddly enough). English, for example, is not really a mixed language at all - its grammar has suffered massive (and blessed!) attrition compared to German or Dutch due to the 'static' created by the Norman invasion, communicative interference created by a Romance-speaking ruling class imposing their domination on top of a Germanic base (English kings didn't stop speaking French as a first language until Edward II, I believe). So all the cases and declensions of Old English went out the window; what we gained in simplicity of grammar we lost in flexibility of sentence construction and word order. (In Latin, for example, you can arrange the words in pretty much any order you please since each word's ending indicates its relationship to all the others in a coherent fashion.) English has also been uniquely acquisitive and open with respect to vocabulary - it has the largest lexicon of any language in the world by a long shot - so many new words (usually Latin by way of Norman French) replaced the older terms.

But there's still no question that English is a Germanic language. Our basic grammar, our sentence construction, our verbal conjugations - all quite recognizably Germanic. And our most basic vocabulary is still remarkably conservative: out of the 100 most commonly used words in the English language, the ones you say every day or every week at least, 95% of them are inherited directly from Old English.

The moral of the story is that just because a language loses/gains vocabulary or alters its grammar under influence of neighboring languages, that doesn't change its classification or pedigree. For example, Romania's geographic location (in the middle of a lingustic world that for the last 1,200 years has been Slavic) has affected its vocabulary and grammar in significant ways...but it is still clearly a Romance language, and in fact the most conservative Romance language of them all, retaining more of the original Latin case system than Italian, French, Spanish, or Romansch.

#76

You're probably right about the 90's but I wouldmake an argument for Yo La Tengo. Nothing as colossal as Slanted and Enchanted, but nothing as dodgy as Terror Twilight is at times.
Only contender for the 00's is Wilco, in my book.

By the way, it may amuse you all to learn the Proto-Indo-European was remarkably specific with reference to skin conditions, with no less than six words securely reconstructed to the proto-language. For example, English speakers have hardly altered our word for "wart" over four thousand years: the PIE reconstruction is *worhdo (Latv ap-virde 'abscess', Rus vered 'abscess', NPers balu 'wart') and it's remarkable that this is indeed pretty much the same as the PIE word for 'frog' *worhd-i/o, suggesting that the tradition of equating toads and wartiness is an ancient one indeed, dating all the way back to Indo-European times.

#83 - yo la tengo:

You're probably right about the 90's but I would make an argument for Yo La Tengo. Nothing as colossal as Slanted and Enchanted, but nothing as dodgy as Terror Twilight is at times.

Your username suggests to me that perhaps you are biased. Honestly, I don't know the first thing about YLT, so I can't comment either way. I agree with you about Terror Twilight, however I can forgive it since Slanted & Enchanted, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and Wowee Zowee are all such masterpieces. I honestly have trouble decided which one is their best. And Pavement's non-album offcuttings (EP tracks, B-sides, compilation giveaways, and even outtakes like "All My Friends" and "Soiled Little Filly") are every bit as good as the album stuff.

#81 - Got it, Dial.

I was gonna say, we could do with a peak Randolph playing 2B at this point.

Hell, if Willie played 2B RIGHT NOW he might be of greater benefit to the team, it seems.

Terror Twilight is a pretty good record. Lots better than Brighten the Corners. Some real fine songs on there.

Slanted & Enchanted, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and Wowee Zowee

Watery Domestic - short, but the best record of the decade IMO.

Slow it down! Song is sacred!

Not Eso-
I suggest you check out Electr-o-Pura as a starting point. Absolutely fabulous. I agree, by the way, with your summing up of Pavement. It is just that I do harbor a great deal of love for YLT

[For the record, Radiohead is not the greatest band of the '90s. They're the greatest band of the '00s. Pavement is the greatest band of the '90s./quote]

One thing I've learned on this site is that I apparently hate great music. Can't stand Pavement, can't stand 99% of Radiohead (and the 1% I do like is probably despised by actual Radiohead fans, which I define as "people who can listen to Kid A and identify when the songs begin and end").

#90 - Monty:

One thing I've learned on this site is that I apparently hate great music. Can't stand Pavement, can't stand 99% of Radiohead (and the 1% I do like is probably despised by actual Radiohead fans, which I define as "people who can listen to Kid A and identify when the songs begin and end").

Fair enough, Monty. Understand that my real love is with music of the '60s, '70s, and early '80s. In particular, I have a dorky affection for prog-rock (Genesis, King Crimson, Can, even some Yes) and art-rock/post-punk/avant-garde (Eno, Gabriel, Wire, Magazine, Mission Of Burma, early R.E.M., Husker Du, Talking Heads, etc). And I'd still say that, objectively, the greatest five groups/artists ever are The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Dylan, and maybe a tie between The Byrds and The VU. So I'm mostly a traditionalist. The reason I love Pavement and Radiohead is because they remain loyal to the great tradition of melody and songcraft. Or, to repeat what Malkmus said: "Slow it down, song is sacred."

Can't speak for anyone else, but I'm Indo-Europeanist so I eat this stuff up. On a linguistic note related to the one Bob Dernier mentioned, did you realize that the the word "muscle" is etymologically derived from the same root as "mouse" (Latin musculus -> PIE *mus[tlo], literally "tiny mouse"), reflecting the ancient proto-Indo-European understanding of muscles as analogous to little mice running around underneath the skin? No joke.

This is the explanation of why in Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian, the word for mouse is miš, while the word for muscle is mišić (literally, small mouse).

I was gonna say, we could do with a peak Randolph playing 2B at this point.

Hell, if Willie played 2B RIGHT NOW he might be of greater benefit to the team, it seems.

Yes, let's make this team even MORE like the 1992 Mets!

Another musical observation:

Bruce Springsteen sure could give a good concert in the years 1973-1974. I knew I religiously collected his shows from that era for a reason. Hey bus driver, keep the change!