John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons

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Language Stuff

Almost everyone uses language, so inevitably almost everyone thinks they are an expert in it. I don’t consider myself an expert, though most of my work requires at least language competence and sometimes actual skill, but I do follow the blogs featured on this feeds page.

(If you are wondering where the translation-related feeds have all gone, I have put them on their own page.)

Most of the blogs represented here are in English, most of the time, but don’t be surprised to find other languages used. Go with the flow – I occasionally find myself pleasantly surprised at how much I can grasp in languages I have never seen before.

Language On the Net

Urban Word of the Day

vacation dick

Posted 16 months ago

A dick that's [too big] to [take on] a daily basis, but makes for good [vacation sex]. Bigger than a boyfriend dick. [Link]

4 corner kiss

Posted 16 months ago

Also can be known as a [compass] kiss North (forehead), East (right cheek), South (chin), west (left cheek) is when you kiss all four “corners” of the face. It is usually placed [on the Forehead], cheeks and chin. It doesn’t have to be limited to just those places, but just as long as there is a kiss on a separate … [Link]

languagehat.com

All French is Good French.

Posted 3 years ago

Chelsea Brasted has a good NatGeo piece (archived) on Cajun (and other) French: When Janice Prejean was growing up, if she wanted to speak with her grandparents, she had to do it in French. To crack the code of the private conversations and jokes that flew over the heads of children at family gatherings, she also needed to know the … [Link]

Forgetting Cantonese.

Posted 3 years ago

Jenny Liao has a moving New Yorker piece (archived) about losing a language: No one prepared me for the heartbreak of losing my first language. It doesn’t feel like the sudden, sharp pain of losing someone you love, but rather a dull ache that builds slowly until it becomes a part of you. My first language, Cantonese, is the only … [Link]

World Wide Words: Updates

New online: Not my pigeon

Posted 7 years ago

The unfashionable idiom 'not my pigeon' puzzles a reader. [Link]

New online: Subnivean

Posted 7 years ago

The unusual word 'subnivean' is all about snow. [Link]

Wordorigins.org

nones (religious, not “nuns”)

Posted 4 years ago

In recent years, there have been many news reports touting the fact that the fastest growing religious group in the United States is the nones. Who are the nones? And when did we start using the term? [Link]

bowl, Super Bowl

Posted 4 years ago

With every new year comes the onslaught of bowl games: the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Aloha Bowl, and of course the Super Bowl. Why do we call these football contests bowls? [Link]

Omniglot blog

Out of a clear blue left field

Posted 5 years ago

When something comes out of left field, it is comes from an unexpected place or direction, or is surprising or unexpected, and something that is left field is uncommon, unpopular or strange [source]. This phrase comes from baseball and refers to the left side of a baseball field, although why something coming from this part of the field is unexpected … [Link]

Language Quiz

Posted 5 years ago

Here’s a recording in a mystery language. Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken? [Link]

Language Log

Icebachi

Posted 5 years ago

From Tomo's Twitter: So “-bachi” is now an English suffix for any food prepared live by Asians on a metal plate.Etymology: 火鉢 [hibachi] ‘charcoal brazier’ = 火 [hi] ‘fire’ + 鉢 [hachi] ‘crock’ pic.twitter.com/WDEtYoKKz2 — Tomo (@tomoakiyama) May 2, 2019 It's interesting that a word which started out meaning an earthenware fire pot ends up signifying a metal griddle for … [Link]

Mandarin with a German accent

Posted 5 years ago

Christian Lindner opened his speech in Chinese at the 70th Federal Party Congress of the FDP: None of the native speakers of Chinese to whom I showed this could understand any of it, not one word (so they said). I understood the middle part (from 在 to 要) upon first hearing. Here's what Lindner said: Shèhuì yǔ jīngjì zài bùduàn … [Link]

Talk Wordy to Me

Harvard Square

Posted 5 years ago

Buy a print [Link]

Over Boston Common

Posted 5 years ago

A black and white photo of a helicopter from below, in a sky half-filled with clouds. Bare tree branches fill the top half of the photo.December 2018 [Link]

the world in words

A bilingual seal of approval for high school graduates

Posted 9 years ago

Peter Kuskie and Maria Regalado are students at Hillsboro High in Oregon and are on track to receive a new bilingual seal on their diplomas. (Photo: Monica Campbell) Read this post from Monica Campbell. Or listen to the podcast above. Let’s take a trip back to September 1995, when Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole was talking about education on the campaign … [Link]

A Soviet-era storytelling game trains you to bluff, lie and sometimes tell the truth

Posted 9 years ago

A tense moment during a game of “Mafia” in Kiev, Ukraine. (Photo courtesy of the English Mafia Club of Kiev) Read this post from Alina Simone. Or listen to the podcast above. The storytelling parlor game “Mafia” crosses borders, transcends culture and bridges the language divide in ways you’d never expect. There are no game boards or joysticks involved in Mafia … [Link]

Archive

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