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Posted by Victor Mair

We've met Julesy before:  "The conundrum of singing with tones" (5/30/25).  She has a Ph.D. in linguistics and knows how to communicate her scientific knowledge of Mandarin to intelligent laypersons.  Here she is again, this time telling us some very important things about the differences between words and characters:

During the first half of her presentation, Julesy made me feel that she was preaching the gospel according to VHM (difference between zì 字 ["character"] and cí 詞 ["word"]), spacing / parsing, etc., but in the second half she got into some statistical surveys and the notion of "collocations" that were "lexically significant", and salvaged some unique properties of sinographs while yet assimilating them into modern concepts of linguistics.

What a breath of fresh air to have someone with her expertise and exactitude explaining how Sinitic languages work.  Until the recent past, most of what was purveyed about "Chinese" was either too technical and theoretical for the non-specialist to grasp or was a mishmash of nonsense gobbledygook.

Keep 'em comin', Julesy!

 

Selected readings

 

Dragon Yesterday and Tomorrow

Jul. 3rd, 2025 09:00 pm
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By AlemagliaDesigns
Reworked design for How to Train Your Dragon 2025 I hope you like it
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Posted by Jim Rixner

Winnipeg Jets v Pittsburgh Penguins
Photo by Joe Sargent/NHLI via Getty Images

There hasn’t been much happening lately on the trade front, but that could change soon..

There haven’t been many big times trades, but that could be a function of the biggest winger free agent still mulling his decision. Chris Johnston talked about how Nikolaj Ehlers could be holding up the trade market as teams waited for his decision that took 50 hours into free agency to sign with Carolina.

It’s believed that many teams are either in the running or have made strong offers to Ehlers, which puts them in a bind with cap flexibility until they figured out whether or not he is going to sign with them.

For a team like the Penguins, they’re not going to be adding Ehlers but the waiting game for them is about shoppers lining up if they have to fall back to their Plan B.

The Penguins are overstocked right now with 15 NHL caliber forwards after the signings of Anthony Mantha, Justin Brazeau, Philip Tomasino and Connor Dewar to contracts earlier this week.

Add in the young players of Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen who are knocking on the door for decent-sized NHL roles and the Pens are crowded right now up front. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin will be in the top-six, add in potentially Mantha and Tommy Novak and some young players and suddenly a team is forming without the presence of Rickard Rakell and/or Bryan Rust.

Lots can change in the course of a phone call by Dubas, so we’ll have to see. Early in free agency he’s added enough quantity to the ranks to have the flexibility to sell off a piece or two. The only question now is when it happens, for how much and what team will step up to the plate with an offer that the Penguins like for the future.

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Photograph with added text: Working Together, at Fancake. Workers in India use wide wooden paddles with long handles to shove a huge yard of drying grains into big piles. The grain, most likely rice, is a beautiful golden color, and there's a mix of western and traditional clothing among the seven men and women.
[community profile] fancake is a thematic recommendation community where all members are welcome to post recs, and fanworks of all shapes and sizes are accepted. Check out the community guidelines for the full set of rules.

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"…a lot more cut and dry"?

Jul. 3rd, 2025 12:45 pm
[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Mark Liberman

Over the years, we've taken many self-appointed usage authorities to task for ignorant pronouncements presenting their personal reactions as facts of the standard language, or even as logical necessities. But everybody has similar reactions, and the point is not to deny the existence of usage conventions, or to pretend that you don't ever perceive something as a violation.  As in all areas of cultural judgment, however, it's a good idea to examine the foundations of your responses, because sometimes it turns out that you're wrong about the facts or the logic.

I recently documented an experience of that general kind in a June 20 post "Incredulous, incredible, whatever…", where a usage that I perceived as a malapropism turned out to go back to Shakespeare.

This morning's example is even more surprising to me — "cut and dry" where I expected "cut and dried".

In an online video clip, Julia Jacobs explains the recent Sean Combs verdict — "Sean Combs Acquitted of Sex Trafficking but Found Guilty on Lesser Charges", NYT 7/2/2025:

Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul who built a business empire around his personal brand, was convicted on Wednesday of transporting prostitutes to participate in his drug-fueled sex marathons, but acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking, the most serious charges against him. Julia Jacobs, a New York Times culture reporter, explains the verdict.

At about 1:12 in the clip, she says [emphasis added]:

That charge is a lot more cut and dry, in that it has to do
with transporting
people over state lines
for the purposes of prostitution.

That triggered my usage alarm: "Gee, that's an interesting but illogical development. Dry as a participle parallel to cut? " (Much later in the process, I realized that cut and dry can be parallel adjectives…)

I had enough sense to look around, and found plenty of current examples. In fact, in the COCA corpus,  there are 180 instances of "cut and dried" and 183 instances of "cut and dry".

The OED traces the modifier "cut and dry" back to 1643:

Originally Scottish, later North American. Designating tobacco leaves which have been dried and shredded.

And the extended meaning back to 1684:

Already decided, settled, or prepared; ready-made. Hence: (in later use) clear-cut, straightforward.
Originally in the phrase ready cut and dry.

The "cut and dried" alternative has OED citations for the tobacco-leaf sense back to 1680, and for the "decided, settled, or prepared" sense back to 1664.  So the two version have been in (free?) variation since the beginning — although I had managed to remain totally unaware of the "cut and dry" version until today.

In my defense, Google Ngrams shows that "cut and dried" had a more than 95% share in the 1940s, falling to around 2/3 in recent years:

(Though maybe that tells us more about proofreader than writers?)

Update — Based on the small sample in the comments, some people have always thought it was "cut and dry", others have always thought it was "cut and dried", and nobody (?) was ever aware of the alternative…

 

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Posted by Jim Rixner

Summer hockey is about to kick off for the Pens

The Penguins open their summer development camp today through July 7th. Prospects will gather at UPMC Lemieux up in Cranberry and get some instruction and the team will be able to gauge progress and see how the future is coming together.

Here’s what to know:

Schedule

Thursday, July 3:

9:00 AM – Goalie On-Ice Session (Covestro Rink)
10:00 AM – Group 1 Skating (FedEx Rink)
11:00 AM – Group 1 Skills (Covestro Rink)
11:00 AM – Group 2 Skating (FedEx Rink)
12:00 PM – Group 2 Skills (Covestro Rink)
12:00 PM – Group 3 Skating (FedEx Rink)
1:00 PM – Group 3 Skills (Covestro Rink)

Friday, July 4:

9:00 AM – Goalie On-Ice Session (Covestro Rink)
10:00 AM – Group 2 Skating (FedEx Rink)
11:00 AM – Group 2 Skills (Covestro Rink)
11:00 AM – Group 3 Skating (FedEx Rink)
12:00 PM – Group 3 Skills (Covestro Rink)
12:00 PM – Group 1 Skating (FedEx Rink)
1:00 PM – Group 1 Skills (Covestro Rink)

Saturday, July 5:

10:00 AM – Group 3 Skating/Skills (Both Rinks)
11:45 AM – Group 1 Skating/Skills (Both Rinks)
1:30 PM – Group 2 Skating/Skills (Both Rinks)

Sunday, July 6:

10:00 AM – Group 1/Group 2 Practice (FedEx Rink)
10:00 AM – Group 3 Skills (Covestro Rink)
10:30 AM – Group 1/Group 3 Practice (FedEx Rink)
10:30 AM – Group 2 Skills (Covestro Rink)
11:20 AM – Group 2/Group 3 Practice (FedEx Rink)
11:20 AM – Group 1 Skills (Covestro Rink)

Monday, July 7:

12:00 PM – Tournament (FedEx Rink)

The only thing less fun than participating in hockey practices might be watching hockey practices, and there’s plenty of that early on. The joint practices on Sunday and the annual tournament on Monday are probably the best days to circle for most worthwhile attendance.

2025 Penguins Development Camp Roster

The camp is highlighted by all of the players drafted last weekend. That’s a big deal this time around, the Pens drafted 13 players — including three in the first round and seven within the first 91 picks.

Ben Kindel will be a focus point, at 11th overall he’s the highest draft pick Pittsburgh has made at forward since Jordan Staal. Kindel wasn’t expected to be selected as high as he was so it’ll be an interesting first impression to see if it’s obvious what the Pens liked so much from him.

Down the line, the camp will be important for other new faces as well. Fellow first rounders Bill Zonnon and Will Horcoff are considered developmental players that have a good amount of work and growth in their games needed in the coming years. There’s no better place to start than the relatively low-key NHL summer camp to start learning the ropes from pro coaches and NHL development experts.

Beyond those top picks, the focus will shift to the three defensemen drafted in the second and third rounds; Peyton Kettles, Charlie Trethewey and Brady Peddle. They will be easy to notice since the average size there is about 6’4” and over 200 pounds. Fifth rounder defender Quinn Beachesne is more dynamic as a skater and puck handler than all of those players and figures to look impressive in this setting as well.

How those new defenders stack up compared to teenaged standout Harrison Brunicke will be worth keeping an eye on too. Brunicke will be the measuring stick for a lot of the prospects in this camp, including for Emil Pieniniemi the Finnish import who performed well in the OHL last season and starts his journey to the pros this fall with this summer camp.

Brunicke, 19, isn’t old but is already one of the more experienced players at this camp with 10 games of AHL experience under his belt. Defender Chase Pietila (who played three games with Wilkes and 14 games with Wheeling at the end of last season) is the only other participant of this summer’s camp with an NHL contract that has North American pro game experience under his belt.

Beyond that, there’s some fun first timers in the mix. Mikhail Ilyin. drafted in 2023, has signed his NHL contract and will be participating in his first action on an NHL rink. Melvin Fernstrom, Sweden’s rookie of the year last season, came over in the Marcus Pettersson/Drew O’Connor trade and will show his stuff in a Pens jersey for the first time. Max Graham may be a somewhat forgotten prospect, acquired in the Cody Glass to NJ trade. Graham has great size but is coming off an injury.

One injured forward who won’t be active on the ice is Tanner Howe, rehabbing from ACL surgery. That’s a shame since Howe played on a line in Calgary with Kindel and Oliver Tulk. Tulk, 20, scored 100 points in the WHL last season and is at Pens camp as an undrafted invite. He’s only 5’8” and 176 pounds but his familiarity with Kindel should only help this week.

[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

When I was a wee lad and went to bible school each week, I had a hard time comprehending just whom were all of those epistles in the New Testament addressed to.  Of course, there are many other books in the New Testament, a total of 27, but the ones that intrigued me most were the 9 Pauline letters to Christian churches that we refer to as "epistles".  I was most captivated by these 9 books and I wanted to know what kind of people they were, what their communities were like, what their ethnicities were, and, above all, even way back then, what languages they spoke.

These communities were called:

Romans
Corinthians — Paul wrote two epistles to them
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
Thessalonians — Paul also wrote two epistles to them

I knew who the Romans were, and what language they spoke, so no problem there.  Moreover, I was aware from a sense of architectural history that a Corinthian capital column was a Greek creation.  Several of the others had a Greek ring to them as well.  But the one that attracted my attention above all the others was the letter to the Galatians, who were located in a region of Anatolia known as Galatia.  Somehow Galatians didn't seem to fit the Mediterranean paradigm that I suspected for the other communities.

Only much later did I learn that the Galatians were a type of Gauls, i.e., Celts, who had migrated from what is now France to what is now Türkiye.  What, pray tell, would have driven them there so far from the north to the south, when most population movements during the Holocene Epoch (last ten thousand years) generally were from south to north?

The Gauls and their confrères were outstanding miners.  They mined a variety of minerals, including gold, iron, and tin.  The latter was important in its own right, but also for alloying with copper to produce bronze, the metallurgy of which the Celts were renowned for.  Above all, however, the Celts / Gauls were masters of saltmining, which is reflected in these toponyms:  Hallstatt, Hallein, Halle, G(h)alich.

Even today, though, when I think of Celts, a bucolic picture of shepherds with their flocks comes to mind, and it's not difficult to imagine that, just as the Celts went wandering in search of metal sources, so they were ever in quest of better pastures for their sheep.

It is no wonder that, being the skillful shepherds that they were, the Celts would become the premier wool weavers we know them to be.  It just so happens that one of the textile types they perfected was diagonal twill.  If you add some colored thread into the warp and the weft in a repeated pattern, you get plaid, beloved of the Gaelic Scots still to this day. It is not an accident that the earliest and best preserved plaids in the world are found in the salt mines of the Celtic areas of Europe, as well as in the bogs of northern Europe, whose tannin preserves organic materials, including plaids and other woolen textiles (not to mention human bodies!).  The only other place on earth I know of for the early conservation of woolen textiles, including very early plaids from the same period as those in the northern European bogs and Celtic salt mines of north central Europe, is the Tarim Basin, especially Qizilchoqa (near Qumul [Hami]) and Zaghunluq (near Chärchän [Qiemo]). both of which have highly saline soils and exquisite Bronze Age woolen textiles, including plaids.  I have tasted the deposits exposed in a tunnel 400 meters down at Hallstatt and from the tableland where Ur-David (Chärchän Man) was discovered.  You can use them as table salt to flavor your food.

The Celts / Gauls certainly had a wanderlust, and that would explain what brought them to Anatolia — and other far-flung places.

 

Selected readings

[Thanks to Elizabeth J. W. Barber, J. P. Mallory, and Douglas Q. Adams]

Book Hoarder Dragon

Jul. 2nd, 2025 09:00 pm
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By worlddominationforcats
This little dragon doesn’t hoard gold — he hoards stories! Perched atop his treasure trove of books, this nerdy dragon is ready to devour epic adventures, magic tales, and fantasy worlds. A perfect design for bookworms, RPG lovers, and hoarders of fictional universes
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Posted by Jim Rixner

Washington Capitals v Pittsburgh Penguins
Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images

Former Capitals draft pick joins Pittsburgh

In their quest to add every marginal NHL left handed defenseman around, the Pittsburgh Penguins have reportedly picked up former Washington Capitals Alexander Alexeyev on a one-year free agent signing.

Alexeyev, 25, is a very interesting case. He was stuck in Washington as a depth defender last season, as he had been for most of his career. Alexeyev only appeared in eight NHL regular season games and was a healthy scratch for the rest, save a short AHL conditioning stint. An injury opening got him into 10 playoff games to ironically give him a bigger role on the team at the most important time of the year. Then he ran afoul of the law shortly after the season ended (didn’t look too worse for wear, though). The Caps opted to cut him loose by not extending a qualifying offer.

Back on the ice, trying to find a niche has been an issue for Alexeyev. He played sporadically for the Capitals in the past few seasons, before barely being able to scratch the lineup last season. CapFriendly (RIP) provided a scouting report from 2023 that still largely applies as accurate as an introduction:

Third pairing ‘D’ who takes the majority of his shifts at even strength.

Big body. Not physical. In the way. Absorbs contact to move pucks out of dangers. Long reach is an asset.

Adequate distributor. Can’t afford to hold onto the puck too long / doesn’t have the creativity or escape ability to get too cute.

Good feet for his stature.

Competes. Recognizes his role. Keeps his game mostly simple. Averages around 11:30 TOI

As pointed out on Japers Rink before last season, Alexeyev could post some decent numbers when he actually got the opportunity to stay in the lineup for an extended time.

...when playing consistently with more minutes, Alexeyev seems to thrive. Note that these are not relative to his teammates, as that is much harder to manually calculate, but we can look at the Caps’ overall numbers during the same stretch of “good” for Alexeyev:

45.71 CF% (+1.71)

47.26 xGF% (+3.17)

47.6 SCF% (+3.34)

46.66 HDCF% (+4.67)

Those numbers make Alexeyev’s numbers on the Good Run look even better, even more impressive when considering that he started in the offensive zone only about 30% of the time – so his shifts weren’t exactly easy over that run.

The easy answer for getting the best out of Alexeyev, then, seems to be simply play him more…and that’s where the bad news comes in, because Alexeyev is going up against yet another crowded blueline [in Washington in 2024-25]

The end part proved to be prophetic, Alexeyev barely got his name into the playing lineup in the regular season. He’s got size at 6’4” and 214 pounds and can skate well for a big guy. But he’s never been able to make an impression.

That brings him to an interesting place moving forward in Pittsburgh. Alexeyev signed for league minimum (albeit at a rate that pays him full freight if assigned to the AHL) so the Pens could cut him and suffer minimal consquences.

However the LD depth chart as of now is: Ryan Graves, Ryan Shea, Owen Pickering, Parker Wortherspoon and Caleb Jones. Nary a top-four defender in the mix. Alexeyev isn’t coming in as one either, but stacked up against the rest there’s a case to make that he might be able to provide the best (or second best) level of play compared to that weak competition.

Of course, Pittsburgh could always trade one of their many forwards to bolster the blueline and help balance the lineup, but as of now Alexeyev looks as good of a bet as anyone within the organization to be an NHL capable left handed defender. This looks more like a “low reward, no risk” move than trying to assign any sort of huge upside or pay off to Alexeyev, but he could be a player that could help the Pens in the NHL next season.

Dan Muse won’t be hurting for candidates to round out his blueline, though he rightfully could complain about the general quality right now. Time will tell how much a part of the story that Alexeyev could be for next year but it at least adds yet another option to the growing supply of left shot defenders for the Pens.

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Posted by Jim Rixner

Montreal Canadiens v Pittsburgh Penguins
Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images

Rafael Harvey-Pinard joins the Penguins, along with a couple other deep depth signings the team announced today

The Penguins kept rounding out their organization on the second day of free agency by announcing a series of short-term signings. In addition to formally announcing the big time signing of Anthony Mantha, Pittsburgh has signed forward Rafael Harvey-Pinard and defender Phil Kemp to contracts.

From the team:

Harvey-Pinard, 26, spent the 2024-25 season with the Montreal Canadiens organization. The 5-foot-9, 181-pound forward appeared in one game with the Canadiens and 40 games for their American Hockey League affiliate, the Laval Rocket, where he notched 19 points (5G-14A) and was plus-2.

The Saguenay, Quebec native has spent the previous five seasons (2020-25) in the Montreal Canadiens organization. In 84 career NHL games, Harvey-Pinard has recorded 17 goals, 14 assists and 31 points. His best season came in 2022-23 when he set NHL career highs in goals (14) and points (20) in just 34 games. At the AHL level, all with Laval, he’s accumulated 126 points (51G-75A) in 185 regular-season games.

Prior to being drafted by Montreal in the seventh round (201st overall) of the 2019 NHL Draft, Harvey-Pinard played parts of five seasons of junior hockey (2015-20) with Rouyn-Noranda and Chicoutimi of the QMJHL, winning the QMJHL Championship and Memorial Cup in 2019.

Kemp spent the 2024-25 season with the Bakersfield Condors of the AHL, playing in 56 games and tallying seven goals, five assists and 12 points. His career-high seven goals ranked third among team defensemen, while his 12 points were the fourth most.

The 6-foot-3, 212-pound defenseman has played in parts of five seasons in the AHL with the Condors since 2020-21. In 258 career AHL games, Kemp has recorded 18 goals, 40 assists and 58 points with a plus-38. He has also played in one career NHL game with the Edmonton Oilers in 2024.

Prior to turning professional, Kemp played three seasons at Yale University from 2017-20. In 88 collegiate games, the defenseman recorded nine goals, 18 assists and 27 points. Kemp played two seasons with the U.S. National Team Development Program from 2015-17, captaining the Under-17 and Under-18 teams.

The Greenwich, Connecticut native won a gold medal with Team USA at the 2017 World Under-18 Championship and a silver medal at the 2019 World Junior Championship.

Kemp was drafted in the seventh round (208th overall) of the 2017 NHL Draft by Edmonton.

Harvey-Pinard has appeared in at least one NHL game in the last four seasons - he got off to an exciting start in Montreal putting up 20 points in 34 NHL games during the 2022-23 season but then saw his game recede back towards mostly being minor league. Still, it feels like a good bet that Harvey-Pinard could be a call-up and see some NHL action at some point during the long season for Pittsburgh while providing Wilkes-Barre with a quality player. In some ways, this could be seen as the Emil Bemstrom-adjacent player for 2025-26.

Kemp, has 259 NHL pro games as Tony Androck pointed out, a magic number since 260+ sends him into AHL Veteran territory. Kemp could be seen as something of the new version of Nathan Clurman — who played one NHL game in Pittsburgh in 2024-25 and served as a key veteran blueliner for Wilkes for most of the season that isn’t going to wow anyone but can be steady, capable and competent. Not the sexiest signing, Kemp might be like 47th or 48th in the pecking order for NHL contracts, but it provides a necessary move to add some depth and provide value deeper down the line for the organization.

WBS kept going with signings, announcing two AHL contracts today as well.

Both of these could be very quality AHL moves. Gauthier was the ECHL goalie of the year in 2023-24. Pittsburgh didn’t give him a qualifying offer or NHL contract but the goalie is a solid minor league depth option. It’s a positive that he wanted to return and can squeeze in with an AHL contract.

Aidan McDonough, 25, scored 16 points (10G+6A) in 16 AHL games last year for Charlotte before dealing with a long-term injury. McDonough isn’t in the NHL picture but should make for a very solid option for Wilkes this season as a quality AHL player.

[syndicated profile] pensburgh_feed

Posted by Jim Rixner

Nashville Predators v Calgary Flames
Photo by Leah Hennel/Getty Images

Big forward will look to get his career on track with the Pens

The Penguins have signed free agent forward Anthony Mantha, according to reports. The contract comes with a $2.5 million base salary and up to another $2 million in bonuses according to TVA’s Renaud Lavoie

Mantha is coming off a mostly lost season after surgery to repair an ACL (knee) injury he sustained in early November. That ended his year and stint with Calgary only 13 games into the 2024-25 campaign.

Mantha, 30, has bounced around between lately, with the Pens becoming the fifth team he’s been on since 2021. Mantha is a three-time 20 goal scorer, but has only cracked 40 points one time since the 2018-19 season. He’s huge but doesn’t play that way lacking physicality and consistency, but when Mantha is on he can be a very effective player in spurts. He was known as a great skater, especially for his massive size, but will have to shake off the knee injury and get back to being a productive player.

Mantha, in essence, lines up really well to potentially be the 2025-26 version of another Anthony from Quebec (as in Beauvillier). One year contract, will have the opportunity to play a big role in Pittsburgh at the beginning of the season. If he performs well and produces then he will become the type of player the Pens can flip at the deadline to a contender for a return. Mantha knows the drill, he joined Washington in 2021 and Vegas in 2023 mid-season ahead of attempted playoff runs.

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Nora Charles

October 2018

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