Feelings & Emotions

How are you feeling today?

Turn this coloured wheel (click on the image to download it or to see it enlarged) and find the right adjective to express and describe your feelings and emotions accurately:

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial pursposes only.

«Un palo tártaro», por Herminio Huerta

Hace unas semanas, en un restaurante de cierto postín, el maître me sugirió como especialidad muy recomendable de la casa el "estik tartar" (así lo pronunció). Al responder yo que se trataría de un "esteik", pues estik significa palo, insistió con gesto contrariado espetándome que, para mi información por si yo no estaba familiarizado con el término, se trataba de carne cruda con variados aliños. Lo dejé por imposible -como dicen los gauchos: hay caballo que nunca coge trote- y pedí el famoso steak, que, por cierto, no estaba nada mal a pesar de que la carne había sido picada con una máquina y no cortada finamente a cuchillo como mandan los cánones y como lo hacen en The Forge en Miami, probablemente donde se come el mejor steak tartare del mundo.

How Spanish got its ñ - the story behind that "n with a tilde"

The history of an ordinary Latin mark that turned into an extraordinary Spanish letter. This is how espannol became español!

Back in medieval Spain, scribes were putting the Latin alphabet on parchment to hand stories and information down to us in their manuscripts. One of their unique, rare manuscripts tells the story of El Cid. But if you look at this manuscript, you'll see that the script is a bit... strange.

Get close enough to the pergamino (parchment) to see all the little squiggles. In Latin, that squiggle is a "titulus". In Spanish, the word "titulus" evolved into "tilde".

Let's follow just one of those squiggles to learn its story. It's the story of a routine little mark that became one of the world's most recognizable letters.

~ CREDITS & SOURCES ~

Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang. Some of the music, too (intro piano, ending, light guitar in the middle, Thoth's Pill bit and "Upbeat Thoughts").

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com): Arid Foothills, Path of the Goblin King v2, Angevin B, The Show Must Be Go

Sneaky Snooper by Jason Shaw (audionautix.com).

Upbeat Thoughts (soundcloud.com/Botmasher).

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Why English is Hard to Learn

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Grawlixes

A grawlix is a sequence of typographical symbols used to represent a non-specific, profane word or phrase. Here's an example of a typical grawlix:

#@$%*!

The term first appeared in a 1964 article called Let's get down to grawlixes by American cartoonist Mort Walker. Later, in a book called The Lexicon of Comicana, Walker created and named an international set of symbols used in comics around the world. Walker called his system Symbolia. Here are some examples of other terms in the list:

• agitrons: wiggly lines indicating that something is shaking
• briffits: clouds of dust indicating that a character left in a rush
• emanata: straight lines rising from around a character's head indicating surprise
• plewds: drops of sweat indicating that a character is hot or stressed
• squeans: asterisks with an empty center indicating drunkenness or dizziness
• waftaroms: wavy lines rising from something indicating a strong smell or heat.

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Spelling

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.