Serials and linkspam

[hwesta]

I'm pretty excited that two of my favorite authors are starting serials within a month of each other. Ursula Vernon is writing (well, wrote and is posting chapter-by-chapter) Summer in Orcus, a fascinating fairy tale with an overprotected girl and Baba Yaga and I haven't read far enough to find out what else. M.C.A. Hogarth is writing Kherishdar's Exception book 2 (er, 4? Do the 2 books of flash-fiction count?) in my favorite of her worlds, an exploration of what a working and positive caste-based society would look like. Something exciting to look forward to every week!

And, some great articles I found recently:

English is not normal
Crucially, [the Celtic languages] were quite unlike English. ... But also, they had an odd construction with the verb do: they used it to form a question, to make a sentence negative, and even just as a kind of seasoning before any verb. Do you walk? I do not walk. I do walk. That looks familiar now because the Celts started doing it in their rendition of English. But before that, such sentences would have seemed bizarre to an English speaker - as they would today in just about any language other than our own and the surviving Celtic ones.

What 80% Comprehension Feels Like
“Bingle for help!” you shout. “This loopity is dying!” You put your fingers on her neck. Nothing. Her flid is not weafling. You take out your joople and bingle 119, the emergency number in Japan. There’s no answer! Then you muchy that you have a new befourn assengle. ....

In fact, it goes a long way toward explaining that intermediate plateau, as you slog from an average of 60% comprehension or so to closer to 90%. That’s why you’re learning so much but don’t feel the breakthrough.