Calendar

“He who does not speak foreign languages
knows nothing about his own.“

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The Tower of Babel” 1563 / Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Here’s a rough breakdown of the top languages on the web:

English: 55.4% – Russian: 6.6% – Japanese: 5.4% – Spanish: 5.2% – Chinese: 4.6%

One of the most contentious aspects of best practice discovery and promulgation in any domain, and no less so in educational settlements, is an agreed-upon vocabulary and shared understanding.  As we explain elsewhere in this history, when a counter-party disagrees with you, he simply switches out the vocabulary — i.e. changes definitions or adds or subtracts from the traditional meanings of things.  So we approach this topic several times a year to confirm our bearing on the meaning of things.

We begin 2025 by breaking down this topic into four sections

Language 100: Survey of vocabulary in the standards catalogs relevant to building and managing education settlement real assets; including legal terms.

Language 200: Electrotechnology standard catalogs; including computer programming languages.

Language 300: The English as the language of science and innovation; the birthplace of computing and programming, the internet’s native tongue, standardization & open source development; etc.

Language 400: Reserved.  Received Pronunciation

RE: National Debate and Speech Association

Come see ‘Pygmalion’ this weekend at Arno Gustin Hall on campus! University of Mary students bring this classic to life in a riveting weekend of performances. 🎬

Showtimes:
Friday – 7:00pm
Saturday – 2:00pm & 7:00pm
Sunday – 2:00pm#Lifeatmary pic.twitter.com/5w5MnEWk4K

— University of Mary (@umary) March 21, 2025

We observe National Poetry Month (April) in the United States and Canada every year with an inquiry into changes in the (meaning of) definitions at the foundation of best practice literature; frequently the subject of sporty debate among experts writing codes and standards for the built environment of education communities.

In the United Kingdom, National Poetry Month is celebrated in October, and it is known as “National Poetry Day” which has been observed since 1994. It is an initiative of the Forward Arts Foundation, which aims to encourage people to read, write and perform poetry.

Other countries also have their own poetry celebrations, such as World Poetry Day, which is observed annually on March 21 by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to promote the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry worldwide.

In past years we used a Tamil mnemonic because Tamil is the oldest surviving language and remains the spoken language of 80-odd million people of South Asia.  Alas, use of Tamil confounds our Wordpress content management system so in 2024 we began coding this topic in American English

https://standardsmichigan.com/%e0%ae%ae%e0%af%8a%e0%ae%b4%e0%ae%bf-2/

Latin Phrases You Should Know. pic.twitter.com/Erq61gVW29

— Learn Latin (@latinedisce) May 5, 2024

Once median household income is adjusted for cost of living, Utah emerges as the wealthiest state in the nation and Mississippi yet again ranks last. Source: https://t.co/AN3JZqtNnF pic.twitter.com/kv8U3LZlvh

— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) January 3, 2025

Chronicle of Higher Education: The Campus Cold War — Faculty vs. Administrators

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Student Art

Innovation – Standardization – Commoditization run along a continuum.  Today we unpack some of the ideas that hasten (and prohibit) leading practice discovery; how quickly goods and services become a “human right”; why all of this is relevant to education communities and why some believe that commoditization is a myth.

From the Wikipedia

In business literature, commoditization is defined as the process by which goods that have economic value and are distinguishable in terms of attributes (uniqueness or brand) end up becoming simple commodities in the eyes of the market or consumers. It is the movement of a market from differentiated to undifferentiated price competition and from monopolistic competition to perfect competition. Hence, the key effect of commoditization is that the pricing power of the manufacturer or brand owner is weakened: when products become more similar from a buyer’s point of view, they will tend to buy the cheapest.

Related:

Why High-Tech Commoditization Is Accelerating

After months of hard work, the top five teams met at USPTO headquarters today for the final round of the 2025 National Patent Application Drafting Competition. 🏆 And the winners are … ⬇️

🥇 First place — @UofMNLawSchool pic.twitter.com/uwNSJR0oBy

— USPTO (@uspto) April 4, 2025

From creating a race car safety device that protects drivers from injury to revolutionizing chemotherapy, Spartans have contributed to more than 3,300 inventions. #SpartansWill pic.twitter.com/dchCs0BFBx

— MSU (@michiganstateu) February 21, 2025

For 58 years, 7-Eleven has been protecting its iconic semi-frozen soft drink, the Slurpee. But it doesn’t stop there. The store has more than 200 registered trademarks to protect its goods and services, including “Oh thank Heaven for 7-Eleven” in 1978 and “Brainfreeze” in 1993. pic.twitter.com/b9bkkcijGg

— USPTO (@uspto) July 11, 2025