Slang Word of the Day: Aoleu!

I was listening to manele (as I am wont to do hehe) this morning while cleaning the house and heard this “word” aoleu and it made me laugh as I’ve heard my neighbors use it a million times. It’s an interjection, which means it’s something people suddenly exclaim and is never “conjugated” or modified in any way (grammatically). There are about a million variants of … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Aoleu!

Don’t Strain Your Brain

If you’re not afraid to use your brain, I recommend watching this documentary (45 minutes) about “quants”, a slang term for quantitative analysts. Although the documentary covers many subjects, it directly addresses some of the topics I’ve been writing about lately, namely the inability to predict the future using (current) statistical modeling. I am not a mathematician, professional or otherwise. But this film interviews several … Continue reading Don’t Strain Your Brain

Lexical Doublets

One of the interesting things about studying the Romanian language is the number of lexical doublets, meaning that quite often two similar words are used, one from a Latin root and one from a non-Latin (usually Slavic) root. English has many of these, including lord and master, venison and deer, fire and flame or sheep and ewe. If you are familiar with other Romance languages … Continue reading Lexical Doublets

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. -Mark Twain I have a confession to make. Many, many moons ago, my roommates and I were living in a perpetual state of poverty and were looking to make some cash. A friend of ours came across a table of statistics used for some casino games (particularly craps) and so we decided to host … Continue reading Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics