Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 86 i Silly Linguistics

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” Everyone knows this quote. The thing is, it’s difficult to say if it means what you think it means. Sure, Isaac Newton, was referring to his teachers and the philosophers whom he learned from, but more explicitly the Greek Heroes. But, this bold-faced metaphor for building on the works of your predecessors might be less of a metaphor than it seems. In 1661, Newton attended Trinity College at Cambridge, where teachings were based on those of Aristotle, to the point where students took notes and studied in Greek. Newton’s Quaestiones are a notebook containing greek notes on his curriculum, mechanical philosopy, and ethics – which, except for a brief interlude to discuss Descartes metaphysics, were entirely…

On 10 June 2025, according to news from metrotvnews.com, a new word was added to the KBBI (the great dictionary of Indonesian Language) as the opposite of the adjective haus "thirsty." The word is palum, which comes from the Batak-Pakpak language used in North Sumatra province. This article was written because I always thought that the opposite of "thirsty" was kembung, (that I thought to have a) meaning “drinking too much.” I checked the entry for kembung in the online KBBI, and there are three meanings: 1.Swollen or puffed up (because of air); 2.Feeling full and like there's air inside (related to the stomach); 3.(In medicine and physiology) when the stomach gets bigger because of fermentation gas that can't be released through the mouth. The same goes as English for…

Photo, drawings of staves and artwork of sorceress with tilberi also by Linden Alexander Pentecost. This publication is completely separate from any of my other publications, including others which go into detail about non-Norse language in Iceland. The art, drawings and photo have also not been previously published. I originally planned to write a different article for this magazine edition, about mysterious ancient inscriptions in the Americas, but this will have to wait til a future edition, but in the meantime I will publish an article on my BookofDunBarra website with some notes on this, before a more detailed Silly Linguistics article in the future about certain aspects of these inscriptions in the Americas. Photo above: a lava tube in the Icelandic Highlands, Hálendið. I do not remember the name of…

If you have ever taken a grammar class, you are likely familiar with speaking in the first person (using pronouns like I or we), the second person (pronouns like you), and the third person (he/she/it/they). But what about a fourth person? As it turns out, the idea of a fourth person is actually very real in linguistics. It shows up in languages that use obviation—a system that helps keep track of who’s who when multiple third-persons are involved. And here’s the twist: in some languages, that fourth person may not even show up on the surface; it’s only visible in the syntax! Before we dive into what that even means, though, let’s start with the basics: what do linguists mean when they talk about the fourth person? The Pronoun Ambiguity…