Ever laugh out loud at the suggestions Google tosses your way when you enter a search term? If you haven’t, here’s the breakdown on how to proceed, from The Edge of the American West:

Go to Google.
Type in the beginning of a common phrase (e.g., “how do I..”, [...]

Two nights ago I went over to the Red Vic on Haight St. in San Francisco at a friend’s recommendation for a screening of Astra Taylor’s Examined Life. It was an immensely pleasurable experience – a compelling movie, tasty pizza next door (yes, pizza lives on on FIT!), fog [...]

This afternoon, I had occasion to visit some “sign stores” in a neighboring village in a New Delhi suburb. We needed stamp pads (it’s a long, dull, inconsequential, and utterly irrelevant story why), and so, this hot afternoon-it was around 104°F, with 25% humidity-we trekked over to the village. The “LADIES TOILET” (or, the “Ladies/महिला”/”Women” [...]

Found this cool image on a T-shirt site [hat tip: Reddit]. Go get yours:

Devotees of தமிழ் (Tamil) are getting ready to build a temple in honor of the language in southern Tamil Nadu, the Indian state. Here’s a little more about it:

It will have a hall for conducting Tamil discourses and debates, a library comprising famous Tamil books, a free Siddha medical centre and pillars in [...]

Jorge Colombo drew this week’s New Yorker cover using an iPhone application called “Brushes.” An additional app, Brushes Viewer, generated the video recap of how the image got made. Check out how the cover image got made below:

FITizens! Here’s wishing you a wonderful, productive summer for blogging and all else under the brilliant sun.

I’ll be reporting back often from the other side of the world…

Welcome to food-and-discussion this afternoon, the last Found in Translation gathering of the semester, where we’ll discuss where the blog has come over this semester, and where it should go in coming months. In particular, with the planned expansion of the BLC website pending, it’s a great time to re-imagine new ways for [...]

Today’s Op-Ed column in the New York Times by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maureen Dowd, entitled “Cheney, Master of Pain,” is the talk of the blogosphere. The big story is that Dowd plagiarized the following section which appears in today’s column:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, [...]

Anyone who’s interested in language in society might want to take a look at the May 2009 issue of Text & Talk, with articles on Dell Hymes by Jan Blommaert, Nancy Hornberger, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Ron & Suzanne Scollon, Ben Rampton and others. I got the original link from LinguistList.

Since biking has been on the pages of FIT recently, I thought I’d share my experience yesterday of finding out about the very cool language outreach work being done by Matt at Warm Planet bikes and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

According to this week’s cover story in [...]

Off to a bad start? Oooooops!

A couple of days ago, I chanced upon a very provocative piece entitled “I’m In Ur Base, Imitatin Ur Doodz!” posted by Ta-Nehisi Coates on his blog at The Atlantic Online, where he’s a contributing editor. Here’s what caught my attention:

Often when a white person wants to give his opinion on something [...]

Today was my last day of my first year of graduate study at CAL. I was thinking about how to express in words the emotions that I feel. I think there is a sensation of excitement, and relief, both are qualified by the tension that still lies in my shoulders.  If there is one place [...]

Hi Fitizens, it’s been a while since the last poll, and by popular demand (in my head), I decided to bring back the FIT Poll! Get crackin’! I expect to see at least three votes by the time this night is over.

more→

Last week on FIT, David Malinowski wrote about public discourses about the so-called swine flu and the ways these reconstruct borders between countries and people. (The construction of these borders, it should be noted, is not just a U.S. American phenomenon. A New York Times article from May 4 documents [...]

Living in the United States for the past five years, the extensive circulation of the word “sorry” is something I generally take for granted. However, I was revisiting some of the stories I collected while with some kids at an orphanage in a suburb of New Delhi, India, when it struck me how odd, or [...]

Now, looking back and looking forward at the end of my third semester in Language and Power, I’m struck by how much the syllabus feels like it tells the story of a journey of survival. But, I have to admit, it’s a funny kind of journey, and one I wouldn’t have ever hoped for, since [...]

Check out Yooouuutuuube, where you can watch Youtube videos through “a program [which] provides every frame simultaneously in a blizzard of cascading imagery.” Check out a sample video here, or enter your own Youtube urls on the Yooouuutuuube page.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.

Many of you may have seen this or even written about it (wink) but for those who haven’t, it seems backwards thinking of the 20th century has carried well into the 21st: There’s been coverage recently of the U.S. Army’s recent dismissal of Lt. Dan Choi, an openly gay Arabic “linguist” who had served in [...]