Starlings

These birds have some odd relevances to my academic life. First, their presence in America has been attributed to an obsessive Shakespeare fan, though the Shakespeare connection may be nothing but a legend. Second, they may be capable of recognizing recursion in sound sequences, an ability generally considered unique to humans and essential to language.

Sin-tax

I am currently taking a course on syntax which the professor introduced by defining the subject thus: "...which is, of course, the tax that sinners pay to the church."

Apparently this joke is quite an old one-- while looking up Latin-related references for that same class on Google Books, I came across The Comic Latin Grammar of 1840, which contains the following line:

Q. What part of the grammar resembles the indulgences sold in the middle ages?
A. Sin-tax.

Paper crane

I bought this crane from a fundraiser at my college for the Japanese relief effort. The backdrop is my Syntax classwork-- those trees seemed like an appropriate habitat for a geometric paper bird.

HATE BOOMERANGS

I saw those words on the sign in front of a local liberal church, and was momentarily confused about how to parse them correctly.
Analysis below the fold: