A couple of columns ago I used the typically Indian phrase 'with folded hands', a gesture implying, among many other things, entreaty or surrender. A reader has pointed out that while the phrase is, indeed, in common use, it represents an anatomical impossibility much more so than that suggested by the other choice Indian Englishism: my head is eating circles (a direct translation from the Hindustani 'Mera sir chakkar kha raha hai').
Xu Wenkan is well known to readers of Language Log, both because he was
memorialized in an obituary here — "Xu Wenkan (1943-2023)" (1/10/23) — and
because ...
