Idioms are often beguiling in their incomprehensibility. This is particularly palpable when learning or teaching a new language. For example, Finns say that “cold coffee beautifies,” referring to coffee that has been sitting on the table for too long and is drunk anyway. I am still not entirely sure what the phrase really means, though all the words gathered together seem simple enough.
It is not only language learners that confuse these expressions. A …

“I swung on to my old guitar,
Grabbed hold of a subway car,
And after a rocking, reeling, rolling ride,
I landed up on the downtown side”
Bob Dylan

Today on the metro I watched as the sun left us behind and we ducked into the tunnel near Sörnäinen. The booths feel like sections in a diner, but no table. Like the Pub tram that winds through downtown, but less beer. And orange.
Today three strangers sat with me and I was the only one not talking into my cell phone. Three mobiles pressed to three ears and three mouths a-jabbering.
Immediately above us was a …

In addition to a profound and passionate interest in linguistics, I am equally driven, if not even more so, by a brain-stimulating, soul-shaking fascination towards the North American continent, the U.S. of A. in particular. The questions, research and casual, that arise from a nation so wonderfully contradictory and attached to its past are copious and complex enough to keep me from ever getting a full night’s sleep.
From a “foreigner’s” perspective, it’s always a question …

Every now and then, the staff at BTSB becomes too busy doing the kind of hard work it takes to bring you the informative, insightful, and introverted articles that we strive to bring you. Basically, we have lives and we didn’t get around to writing anything this week. When this happens, we republish articles from Substitute, the precursor to BTSB, for a segment we call: Straight from the Vault.