The Science of Bruschetta.

I posted about a video by Taylor “Language” Jones last year, and now he’s got another one I can’t resist sharing, Dear Hank Green, here’s the science of “Bruschetta”. It’s about how we choose which version of borrowed words to say (with detours into what even counts as “borrowed,” e.g. the fake-French “nom de plume”), and it’s one of the few video essays I wish were longer — it’s under fifteen minutes, and I would happily have watched for half an hour if he analyzed a bunch of good examples. One of his trick questions (“leave the answer in the comments if you know it!”) is what the real French phrase is; another is “in what language is bgadim an actual word?” (spoiler: it’s Hebrew). I was distressed that he called /beɪˈʒɪŋ/ (“Beizhing”) the “standard” pronunciation of Beijing, but I can’t in good conscience dispute it. And I’m reminded of my comment here: “The problem, of course, is knowing with whom to use which pronunciation.” (I just thought of a good example: I’ve heard enough…