Soft or hard “g”? It’s been in the news lately in relation to the file format “gif,” which is currently enjoying a renaissance as a new generation discovers its usefulness in creating annoying animations. This week the “creator” of the Graphical Interchange Format weighed in that he’s always pronounced it with a soft “g.” Arika Okrent gives some historical context on the sources of “g” words in English.

Dealbreaker’s Jon Shazar reassures us by excluding Green Cannabis from the category of “marijuana hedge fund,” contrary to its earlier inclusion by HedgeCo. It’s just a privately traded manufacturing company – of cookies and candy made with marijuana. But hedge funds might invest in it! It’s not clear where these would be sold.

Yesterday Tyler Schnoebelen posted an important warning to anyone who thinks translation is simple, by going through various translations of the quote “the stuff that dreams are made of” from the movie the Maltese Falcon .  Unfortunately it’s even worse than he says, because the official French translation, at least, is not very good. One spring evening when I was in college in Paris I went out to see Casablanca .

My friend Dan Parvaz, who is a registered American Sign Language interpreter, posted yesterday on Facebook that it was Interpreter Appreciation Day. Further investigation reveals that this day is intended specifically for sign language interpreters, but spoken-language interpreters work hard and deserve appreciation too.

Even if you didn’t grow up in a hippie town like I did, you may very well like to eat natural foods. If I weren’t allergic I would eat natural chicken; everyone says it’s healthy, right? Not so fast!

Last month I guessed that when Ari Wallach said that Hastings-on-Hudson is a village “in a Wittgensteinian sense,” he meant that it was part of a family of things that are called “villages,” but don’t all share the same set of criteria. Wallach confirmed on Twitter that this was what he meant.

This weekend the New York Times Styles section ran one of their periodic stories about kids growing up and moving to the suburbs, and changing both themselves and the suburbs in the process. A while back the suburb in question (more of an exurb) was Rosendale, and this time it was Hastings-on-Hudson.

I was browsing through the Wikipedia page on relative pronouns and I found this table: Position With explicit relative pronoun With omitted relative pronoun In formal English Subject That’s the man [who ran away]. — That’s the man [who ran away]. Direct object That’s the man [who I saw yesterday]. That’s the man [I saw yesterday]. That’s the man [whom I saw yesterday]. Indirect object That’s the man [who I gave the letter to]. That’s the man [I