Ephiphany may, of course, be a play on FIFA; alternatively, it may be telling us something about the state of Sean Ingle’s expenses in Stuttgart, where, according to the Guardian’s man on the spot, the streets are strained yellow.
Kate Alcock (via Lingformant): children who were poor at moving their mouths were particularly weak at language skills, while those who were good at these movements had a range of language abilities.
This kind of thing is ridiculous. If someone doesn’t want to play for the national team, fine. Individual liberties shouldn’t just be available to people with whom we happen to agree.
Definition: A tendency to express banal and obvious concepts pompously and loudly. Example: The practice of freedom, as for example on La Stampa, constitutes nothing more than the blasts of shareholder trombonism, by now reduced to a state of pure nostalgia, but hoisted as a club against dangerous and sulphurous revisionism. (Il Foglio; either my…
I’ve got me doubts about the whole Ciutadans de Catalunya business, since (a) their potential electorate seems to have given up voting, and (b) they lack the common touch, and that’s putting it kindly. And when, for JC’s sake, is someone going to do something about their website? Even the neo-Nazis have a better one.
I often moan about how short Romance languages are on neologisms. Here‘s yet another list of Dutch innovations, of which I think boeddhabuikje -> budabarriguita, for a woman’s beer-belly, would work here with little explanation, although there’d be the usual hassle about compound nouns.