There are many sporting events that bring cultures together: the Olympics, the World Cup, baseball, basketball, tennis and cycling to name a few. In each of these, the language of the sport’s originating country is spread to the other countries where the sport is adopted.

Baseball, for instance, was born in the good old US of A, and is hugely popular in Latin America and Japan. The words of baseball: strikes, outs, homeruns, short-stops, and double-plays, have been adopted in several other languages across the globe.

In an article about the internationalization of Japanese sports, cycling expert, Nagako Furusawa, refers to the traditional Japanese martial art, Judo, and its international popularity. Judo, along with Sumo wrestling, has established its status world-wide and references to it can now be found in any dictionary, along with being recognized by MS Word’s spell check. The next Japanese phenonemon that is on the verge of gaining world-wide popularity, and influencing other lexicons, if Furusawa is right, will be Keirin Racing.

Since the 2000 Olympic Games, Japanese Keirin racing and its culture have begun to dash across the globe, and the language of Keirin is already showing signs of being adopted in other countries. The word Keirin is derived from a Chinese compound meaning ‘compete wheel’. Here are the characters:

- Compete Wheel, which looks a lot like the following:

- Keiba for ‘compete horse’ or ‘horse racing’ and:

- Keitei for ‘compete boat’ or ‘boat racing’.

Keirin, however, refers to fiercely competitive track cycling. In Japan, you are more likely to see the name written in either the hiragana script or the katakana script:

- Hiragana for Keirin

- Katakana for Keirin

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Ah, the language of love. Whether it is the cooing of French, the rolling purr of Spanish, or the tremulous richness of Italian, come along with me, the Poly-flirt, on a tour of the romantic side of language. We will explore pick-up lines, dating customs, and humorous anecdotes about love around the world.

Let’s get things rolling in this first installment of the poly-flirt with a French anecdote. Having arrived some time ago in France with a dangerously limited vocabulary, I found myself tongue-tied on more than one occasion. One day as I sat in the public library of the city of Aix-en-Provence, a well-dressed and white-haired gentleman took a seat next to me. He noticed my notebooks filled with French grammar and vocabulary and offered to help me to improve my French.

Fantastic, I thought! What an opportunity for language progression! But before I could finish the thought, he threw in an old favorite: “So, what’s your sign?”

When asked a question by a kind-looking senior citizen – any question – one must oblige. However, unfamiliar at that point with even the days of the week in French, I certainly could not list the signs of the zodiac. The only approximation I was able to force out was: “La femme qui n’a jamais couché avec un homme,” which translates to “The woman who has never slept with a man.” Ah, Virgo, the virgin! The old man got my meaning and corrected me with a smile: “La vierge.”

Pick-up lines rarely work, even in French! Here are ten French-language pick-up lines to avoid like an old man who lurks in the reference section of a library:

- Est-ce que ton père a été un voleur ? Parce qu’il a volé les étoiles du ciel pour les mettre dans tes yeux.
(Was your father a thief? Because he stole the stars from the sky to put them in your eyes)

- Tu n’as pas eu mal quand tu es tombé du ciel ?
(Did it hurt when you fell from the sky?)

- Tu dois être fatiguée parce que tu as trotté dans ma tête toute la journée.
(You must be tired, because you’ve been running through my head all day)

- Excuse-moi. On dirait que j’ai perdu mon numéro de téléphone… Est-ce que je pourrais emprunter le tien ?
(Excuse me, I lost my phone number…could I borrow yours?)

- Est-ce que tu crois au coup de foudre au premier regard ou est-ce que je dois repasser ?
(Do you believe in love at first sight? Or should I walk by again?)

- Excuse-moi. Est-ce que tu embrasses les inconnus ? Non ? Donc, je me présente.
(Excuse me, do you kiss strangers? No? Then let me introduce myself)

- Tes pieds doivent sûrement te faire mal, parce que tu t’es promenée dans mes rêves toute la nuit.
(Your feet must surely hurt because you’ve been walking through my dreams all night)

- Je viens d’arriver dans ta ville. Est-ce que tu pourrais m’indiquer le chemin jusqu’à ton appartement?
(I just arrived in this city. Could you tell me the way to your apartment?)

- Est-ce que tu as un plan ? Je me suis perdu dans tes yeux.
(Do you have a map? I’m lost in your eyes)

- La seule chose que tes yeux ne me disent pas, c’est ton nom.
(The only thing your eyes don’t tell me is your name)

As you see, there’s not much difference between French pick-up lines and the ones people use in bars and cafes the world over, so if you’re interested in making eyes roll on more than one continent, you know what to do.

Language people tend to have strong opinions about emoticons: they are ruining our language! Corrupting the youth! A symbol of technology’s stranglehold on our intellects! Or, they are creative and give us new ways to explore empathy with symbols for an evolving world. No matter which side you fall on, here is what might be the first ever story told entirely with emoticons.

Don’t worry, it’s a very short story;)

A unifying trait of all cultures and languages is playfulness — a desire to have fun with language, to twist it this way and that, and to create out of grammatical rules and restrictions a game of words and sounds that renders communication a dynamic and living art.

One way people have done this is through the creation of palindromes, which are words and sentences that read the same forwards and backwards.

The word itself is derived from the Greek meaning to run back again (palín = again + drom–, drameîn = to run). Most language historians credit the formal development of the palindrome to Sotades The Obscene of Maronea, a 3rd century B.C. Greek poet who was killed by Ptolemy II for insulting the Egyptian king with a seemingly innocuous verse, which when read backwards revealed a salacious critique. Though his work did not survive, it is believed that Sotades composed a fully palindromic version of Homer’s Illiad. For centuries, palindromes were known as Sotadic Verses. Luckily, we can enjoy the pleasures of palindromes without fear of being killed by the King of Egypt, or anyone else.

To celebrate the pleasure of playing with language, here are a few amazing English and foreign-language palindromes:

ENGLISH

Perhaps the most commonly referenced English palindrome is:
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!

American comedian and writer, Demetri Martin, recently composed the following amazing palindrome poem:

Dammit I’m mad.
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell.
I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”.
Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,
In my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider… eh?
We sleep. Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one… my names are in it.
Murder? I’m a fool.
A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash.
A Goddam level I lived at.
On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.
Name not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.

FRENCH

Engage le jeu que je le gagne. (Start the game so that I may win.)
Eh, ça va, la vache? (And how is the cow?)

The longest published French-language palindrome is Georges Perec’s Le Grand Palindrome, a 5,566-word piece published in 1969.

SPANISH

La moral, claro, mal. (Morale, clearly, is bad.)
Alli trota la tortilla. (There jogs the tortilla.)

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