John Gordon Ross

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, and I’m certainly not a linguist, but I do look at the blogs featured on this feeds page (too often if the truth be told).

(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

Language Log » Six words

Friday 23 July 16:19:08 CDT 2010

According to Dan O'Brien, these are "Six Words That Need To Be Banned from the English Language": moist, jowls, bulbous, yolk, slurp, pulp. (Sorry, Dan.) As you can probably tell from the list, this is a case of "word aversion", not "word rage": I see loads of words every day. Part of the job. In most cases, I’m OK with … [Link]

languagehat.com » LINGUISTIC NONSENSE IN SAMARKAND.

Friday 23 July 14:42:30 CDT 2010

I learned about Elif Batuman's The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them back in February (see this post, whose thread devolved into the usual inexplicable mix of topics, this time including skis, Jenny Lind, and hunting bears), and having gotten it for my birthday (thanks, Brooke & Elias!) I'm finally reading it, and enjoying it … [Link]

Wordorigins.org » A Copy Editor’s Life

Friday 23 July 13:46:00 CDT 2010

Lori Fradkin tells it like it is on The Awl. (Tip o’ the hat to Grant Barrett & Martha Barnette of A Way With Words) [Link]

Talk Wordy to Me » Is Angelina Jolie carved from marble or Salt?

Friday 23 July 12:00:35 CDT 2010

The Washington Post had a really interesting article about Salt, the new Angelina Jolie spy movie out today. The article talks about how Jolie is charting a career course that is traditionally only taken by male actors, splitting her time between serious dramas and action flicks, while avoiding genres like romantic comedies. But what really caught my eye was the … [Link]

Language Log » "Context is everything" again

Friday 23 July 11:29:15 CDT 2010

The most recent xkcd: Phil Resnik, who's apparently forgotten his LL password again, writes: Does a language with pre-nominal relative clauses (e.g. Chinese) have a way of achieving a similar effect? Is English particularly well designed for taking a seemingly completed proposition and then drastically changing its meaning? Oh, wow, I can imagine a really fun Whorfian story coming out … [Link]

You Don't Say » Proud citizen of Moronia

Friday 23 July 11:04:47 CDT 2010

In “On Being an American,” H.L. Mencken proclaimed his “conviction that the American People, taking one with another, constitute the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goose-steppers ever gathered under one flag in Christendom since the end of the Middle Ages, and that they grow more timorous, more sniveling, more poltroonish, more ignominious every day.” This state … [Link]

Language Log » Yoghurt medley

Friday 23 July 6:19:03 CDT 2010

An amateur Brazilian competitor for Adriano Celentano: Another video here: [Link]

Omniglot blog » Gleann Cholm Cille

Friday 23 July 6:09:35 CDT 2010

I’m off to Gleann Cholm Cille in Dongal in the northwest of Ireland later today. I’m going there for the Scoill Shamhraidh i dTeanga agus Cultúr (Language & Culture Summer School) at Oideas Gael, a week of speaking and singing in Irish, seeing old friends and making new ones, listening to and playing music, and enjoying the wonderful scenery of … [Link]

Language Log » Resume depassivization — this time, zero for 4

Friday 23 July 5:14:40 CDT 2010

Doostang is a job-search platform and advice service that, for a fee, will try to help you get a job. It provides on a blog such helpful things as tips on spicing up your resume. And one of the things it suggests is that you should avoid (are you ready for this, Language Log readers?) the passive voice! So here … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Congreenient

Friday 23 July 2:00:00 CDT 2010

The practice of recycling, or being green, only when convenient. A person who only recycles when it is convenient to do so. I would have recycled my Fiji water bottle, but my plastic bin was full. I guess I'm just congreenient. [Link]

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