Xujun Eberlein brought a new piece of Mandarin slang to my attention in a post on her blog. 最牛 is used as an adjective that doesn’t seem to have an equivalent in English–Xujun does a great job of trying to explain it uses and potential meanings. 牛 is cow, and can be used as an adjective to describe someone as being good in some way. 最牛, therefore would translate to “most cow.” Though, it seems that the term is being used in a semi-sarcastic sense.

Anyway, 最牛 is a fun new word for those of us still learning Chinese. We’re open to your translations of this word. And we’re also open to any submissions of poetry or prose that somehow incorporate this Chinese word or translation (literal or otherwise).

While you go off and debate it meaning and use, we’ll coin a new English word from this: cowiest. Example: Bill was the cowiest executive at the bank, and was the first to be laid off.

We’re not really interested in reading Sarah Palin’s memoir (though after reading a recent article about her use of “facts,” we are inclined to classify her work as faux-moir). We do, however, like her title, Going Rogue–it sounds like it should be political thriller (another reason why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover or title). The title does make us wonder about Sarah Palin’s grasp of the English language.

From Merriam-Webster

Rogue (n.):

1 : vagrant, tramp
2 : a dishonest or worthless person : scoundrel
3 : a mischievous person : scamp
4 : a horse inclined to shirk or misbehave
5 : an individual exhibiting a chance and usually inferior biological variation

Is Sarah Palin calling herself worthless or a misbehaving horse? Is this really how she wants to depict her political career?

We would like to remind all you writers out there that titles are important. Please, choose your titles carefully.

This has been a public service announcement from Terracotta Typewriter.

I have never had any respect for Kanye West. Were it not for the incessant celebrity news reports that are incorporated into what should be real news, I would not know who he was. Now, instead of being indifferent to Kanye, I loathe him. And it’s all thanks to his honesty.

According to this article on Reuters, Kanye has written a book and is out promoting it. Had I known Kanye wrote a book (probably with a lot of help from a ghostwriter), I would’ve been sure to ignore it. I’m fairly certain that I will never read it. I may use it as a door stop should someone give me a copy.

Kanye was quoted as saying, “I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book’s autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life.” And he still expects you to go out and buy his book (and possibly read it instead of using it to level that uneven sofa in your living room).

Now I’ll let you all get back to reading books that are worthwhile. If you have any suggestions for books that would be better than Kanye West’s book, please leave it the comments section (I’m sure I can think of a few hundred).