Can you imagine having to take an exam – or "The Exam," as it's ominously known around here – before you could buy a house? In this vibrant, friendly town on Galway Bay, potential home buyers must submit to a rigorous oral test to see if they're worthy of receiving the keys to a new home. They aren't tested on housekeeping skills, or health-and-safety know-how, or willingness to lend cups of sugar to neighbors in need. Rather, they're tested to see if they can speak Irish Gaelic – because fluent and committed Irish-speakers are welcomed here over others.

The dying flickers of the Teleut language can be found here in southern Siberia, where the coal industry blackens the sky and hems in what once was a thriving nomadic nation enlivened by shamans and holy mountains.

Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist whose imaginative studies of cultural groups from other countries changed the intellectual underpinnings of anthropology and other social sciences, died Oct. 30 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia of complications from heart surgery. He was 80.

Renowned U.S. anthropologist Clifford Geertz has died of complications resulting from heart surgery, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

From the page:

-- Whispers follow her like so many eyes.

She is the one who will go home with you, the sure bet, the kind of girl you can lie down with and then walk all over. She is ogled, envied and often ostracized.

She is the slut. --

New translation and interpretation rights for the Irish language will cost the European Parliament more than €677,000 (£470,000) next year. The figure has stoked the debate on whether the EU is becoming an outrageously expensive "Tower of Babel".

From the page:

-- Wallace, who himself is a somewhat militant grammarian, has argued that descriptivism is hopeless as a scientific endeavor: Using what people actually say and write to determine appropriate English usage is, he says, like writing an ethics textbook based on what people actually do. But descriptive linguists have finally found persuasive champions in Mark Liberman and Geoffrey Pullum, who have collected a series of essays from their blog Language Log into a new book, Far From the Madding Gerund. --

From the page:

-- "I googled you," "google me": The word "google," which has become synonymous with searching the Internet since the advent of the popular search engine of the same name, has just found its way into a US dictionary. --

Last week, the Explainer went over the meaning of "al-" in Arabic names. Many readers wrote in to ask about the words that appear in names like Hind ibn Sheik, Osama Bin Laden, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. What's the deal with ibn, bin, and abu?

From the page:

-- The New York Times reported on Wednesday that an insurgent named Haitham al-Badri masterminded the bombing of the Samarra shrine, at least according to Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie. Al-Badri used to be a member of an insurgent group called Ansar al-Sunna. Now he's part of al-Qaida in Iraq, which used to be run by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, until he died and Abu Hamza al-Muhajer took over. What's the deal with this "al-" prefix? --

Born on June 18th 1969 as the first child in an average normal family, except for the illiterate, abusive father, and the dutiful mother, sacrificing her own life for her children, including that lousy excuse for a husband, all because she made the mistake of marrying him, and because she strongly believes in living with the consequences of one's actions, Irma spent the first 17 years of her life in the small town of Bergen op Zoom in the Netherlands.

Being able to read at age 3, she later on became an avid reader, and having read just about everything the local library had to offer at age 10, she started nagging her mother to bring her to the main library at the other side of town every few days.

She never liked being a girl, and could even be seen praying at night for God to turn her into a boy overnight, always being disappointed if such obviously wasn't the case the next morning. She drove the Catholic nuns at kindergarten crazy by refusing to play with dolls, and by disappearing from the school yard, driving off on a go-cart, of course only to be noticed a couple of blocks down the road by thoughtful adults, bringing her back to that same school yard, where the nuns made sure she knew she was a naughty child. Nevertheless she must have liked going there, because when she was suffering from Pfeiffer's disease, she was told she wouldn't be allowed to go to school the next day, if she didn't sleep in the afternoon, and this for almost an entire year.

Pfeiffer's disease plagued her once more, in secondary school, even though one is supposed to only be able to get it once, where she almost had to retake her 4th year, having missed a couple of months. She studied Latin and Greek, took the obligatory field trip to Italy, smoked marijuana in the pupil's basement, tried to fit in but failed miserably, called just about every teacher by first name, except for the few remaining priests and elderly teachers, played the recorder, even though she would have largely preferred the piano, tried ballet, gymnastics, football, karate, tennis and a couple of other sports, but not ice hockey because that really wasn't considered a sport for girls, played theatre, felt awkward about her blossoming femininity, underwent a breast reduction because her G-cup sized bosom caused a constant backache, lived through a rather dramatic divorce (her parents' divorce that is) of which she insisted to spare you the details, and took off abroad, a whole 40 kilometres from home mind you, to enter university.

Because it surely would be dangerous, a young girl alone in a big bad city, she spent the first year in Antwerp with yet other nuns, who rented rooms to lady students. Because it was such a hassle asking for a key every time she would return to the nunnery after 8 p.m., she duplicated the key, which never was discovered, even though the nuns came close at more than one occasion, one of those being that night when the police rang the bell at about 1 a.m., waking up the entire building, because they wanted to confirm it was her who had called about the smell of gas, and a smell of gas there was by the way, even though the Jewish man her friend and she asked for confirmation, looked as if he was about to strangle them, while all they did was save him and all the other inhabitants of that street from a possible explosion.

She studied economics, as a second choice, as her heart went out to literature, but some thought a girl doesn't need an education anyway, being an inferior creature, and others were afraid an education in literature would only prepare her for a life on the dole. After a couple of years however, she decided she really wouldn't like to pursue a career in the economic field, and quit, exchanging economics for journalism, information and communication, graduating cum laude and getting her first Bachelor's degree, specialising in intercultural communication. After that she considered her knowledge of sociology and anthropology to be inferior, went back to university, and got a Master's degree, graduating cum laude again, after having written a thesis on female genital mutilation, or, using a term with less negative connotations, female circumcision.

All this time she had been working at the same time, starting out as a babysitter for two cute but spoilt Japanese kids, whose father worked in the diamond trade, first as an employee, but later on starting his own company, in which she then did administrative work as well as sorting diamonds, and this for several years. After various temp jobs, she worked at the tourist office of the city of Antwerp for about a year, during Antoon Van Dijck's Year in 1999 (Anthony van Dyck, the painter). One of the temp jobs she did afterwards brought her to a company that developed software, where she was active in helpdesk support, consulting and services support and marketing support. Unfortunately there was a worldwide reorganisation and she found herself, like so many others, unemployed. She was fired the American way, being told one afternoon, after lunch, seeing her e-mail and network access closed down immediately, and being told she didn't have to come back the next day. Good thing she lived at walking distance from the office, and she didn't have a company car, or she would have had to arrange for a taxi in order to get home. Not the fact she was fired but the way in which she was, came as quite a shock, all the more because just one week before that particular day, she had a job evaluation conversation, where she was promised a raise and an interesting career plan, with more emphasis on tech aspects of her work.

As she was unable to find a satisfactory job, and didn't like living on unemployment benefits, she took an intensive course in network administration and basic web development and scripting during 10 months, only to find out, she still wasn't able to find a job, having to compete with young guys straight out of college or university, or system administrators with years and years of experience, even though she was invited for job interviews many a time, and didn't limit herself to finding a job in ICT. The excuses she heard varied from being too old for the labour market, not fitting the all male team, being overqualified, not having enough work experience in that particular field, surely not being able to speak French, being Dutch and all, and being too much of a generalist.

After more temporary and various jobs, participating in an exam for communications expert for a position at the city of Antwerp, she made it through several rounds but got a phone call one morning she didn't make it through the final round. That same afternoon however she got another phone call, asking her whether she would be interested in working for the city of Antwerp in another position, at the special unit Sham Marriages and Forced Marriages, where she now most of the time is interviewing couples wanting to get married, while at least one of them is not having the Belgian nationality or a permanent resident permit, in order to find out whether they want to get married for other reasons than to obtain such a permit. She is also trying to help victims of sham marriages, as well as victims of forced marriages, or people being afraid of being forced to marry.

In her spare time, she likes of course being online, being a member of numerous communities and luring people into following her to those communities, loving anything beta, defining herself as an e-schizophrenic, being an expert in dilly-dallying, being addicted to silly quizzes that are like psychology for the lazy, as well as information and news, being a master in starting new blogs that afterwards don't get enough of her attention, using the nom de plume Morgaine LeFaye, and occasionally publishing poetry and short stories. Offline she still likes reading, writing, going to the theatre, the opera, and a concert once in a while, buying shoes, having long conversations, either over the phone or face to face, and, since she moved from an apartment to a house, gardening, or so she thinks, as due to various reasons, she didn't have the occasion to spend hours gardening just yet.

She lives together with a redheaded Dutchman, who online goes by the unpronounceable name wchulseiee, and whom she met online, about 7 years ago. He was crazy enough to relocate to Antwerp, and is admirable for putting up with her complex and difficult personality. She defines herself as bisexual and polyamorous, with an interest in various fetishes and kinks, emphasising this doesn't mean she is a nymphomaniac, on the contrary, she has known several periods of being asexual.

She spends a lot of time thinking about relationships in general and hers in particular (with family, especially her mother, friends, partner and potential other partners/lovers, ...), the concept of polyamory and the consequences, living together or living alone, bdsm, fetishes, new encounters, the impression you made on her, work, a career change, poetry, the short stories she should write down, handwritten letters, the smell of memories, identity, which camera to buy, her qualities and character flaws, insomnia, how she ever is going to keep her mind quiet once in a while, her immediate future, synchronicity, which language to learn next, both her online and offline friends, her need to relate to people, her being distant and very not physical when feeling troubled and unhappy, the whimsicalities of life, how to break out of vicious circles, catch-22 situations, inconsistencies, how she is an aunt since the beginning of September, children, why there are days she craves attention, how Google is becoming the new Microsoft, and anything that catches her attention as she is rather curious by nature.

She still has a lot to learn in life, for instance how to sleep, how to find inner balance, how to accept herself for who she is, whomever that may be, as she still is trying to figure that out, how to worry less and enjoy more, how to be more optimistic and self secure, how to be more confident writing in English, as she still is feeling inferior for not having an expert knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, which prevents her from expressing nuances, even though she is being assured by several people there's nothing wrong with her English language skills and there aren't that many people that are polyglot.

Her latest addiction is Newsvine, which she loves and adores, all the while still hoping one day it will be less US (of A) centred, and more importantly, multilingual so she can be a proud ambassadress of Newsvine for the Dutch speaking population on earth.

Phew. Could you read that in one single breath?

(also try my 'Bio')

-- Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has pulled the plug on a new state-owned online information site because it is in Spanish.

Huntsman's spokesman Mike Mower says the governor's legal counsel is trying to determine if the site's translations of basic state information violate a 2000 Utah law that makes English the state's official language, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

The site, www.espanol.utah. gov, is a Spanish-language companion to the state's informational Web site, www.utah.gov. The site offered 10 pages of information on taxes, health services, drivers' licenses and work-force services selected from the state's 400-page Web site, the newspaper said. --

-- Dog handlers in a British police force are having to take language classes to communicate with their latest recruits.

Finding it increasingly hard to find suitable German Shepherds in Britain, some British police forces are bringing in dogs from continental Europe.

But there is a problem.

Although the latest arrivals possess all the attributes needed for police work, they only respond to commands in their native language.

Dog handlers at Avon and Somerset police for example, which has recruited three dogs from the Netherlands, have been given a sheet of practical commands in Dutch.

"We have learned a few Dutch phases which the dogs have been trained to respond to," said Sergeant Hardy Hussain, who travelled to Valkenswaard in the Netherlands with PC Paul Nesbit-Bell and PC Andy MacDonald to choose the dogs. --

-- After years of grousing among themselves over matters of grammar and punctuation, copy editors are waging their style wars before a wider audience – in the blogosphere.

From Washington to Dallas – we hope that's not a false range – style mavens are holding forth on hyphens, word usage (or is it use?) and the true meaning of Groundhog Day.

Copy blogs aren't quite in the major league of Web logs; one of the most-read of the 20 or so copy blogs garners about 13,000 unique visitors per month. Still, the copy editors' online diatribes have extended beyond the rim to grammar geeks, writers and English teachers, who fill the comments sections with polite but passionate debate on dangling participles and prepositional endings. --

-- The letter "W" has finally been added to the definitive dictionary of the Swedish language, in the latest edition compiled by the Swedish Academy, it said on its website on Friday.

Words spelled with the letter "W" are rare in Swedish, with the exception of words borrowed from other languages, such as "whisky", "wok", and the Internet "web".

"W" and "V" are also pronounced identically in Swedish, and therefore have often been considered interchangeable. As a result, words spelled with the rarer "W" have been listed under the "V" section of the dictionary, which incidentally is followed by the "X" section.

But in the new version of the Swedish Academy's dictionary, "W" now has a section all to itself.

"The 13th edition introduces something unusual: an additional letter. W ("double-v"), which will no longer be categorized under the single v but will instead be - as in many other languages, including Nordic ones - a letter in its own right, placed after the letter v," the Academy wrote on its website introducing the new dictionary. --

-- At the root of the craze for Chinese tattoos is the same fascination for Eastern traditions that has fanned interest in feng shui and Asian-theme clothing and decor. But by imprinting the Chinese characters indelibly into their skin, the owners of the tattoos take their Asian fetish, and the consequences of less-than-perfect knowledge, to a different level.

Because they must rely on the word of others to ascertain the meaning of the characters, they are vulnerable to honest mistakes as well as malicious jokesters.--

-- France reportedly is upset over a decision by its former colony Algeria to close 42 French-language schools because they have failed to teach mainly in Arabic. --