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, 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

languagehat.com » Markevich’s Linguistic Heroes.

Thursday 3 April 19:11:04 UTC 2014

I was looking through the entry on Boleslav Markevich in Russian Novelists in the Age of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (Vol. 238 of the Dictionary of Literary Biography series — see this post) when I hit on this description of “probably the best known of all his works, Marina iz Alogo Roga (Marina from Alyi Rog)”: “the positive heroes of the … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Schrijfrichting / Scriptpath

Thursday 3 April 15:30:10 UTC 2014

Last week a visitor to Omniglot asked me whether there is a single word in English that means writing direction, i.e. the direction in which writing systems are written. The Latin alphabet, for example, is written from left to right in horizontal lines, as are many other writing systems, while writing systems like Arabic and Hebrew are written from right … [Link]

Language Log » The Estimation Game

Thursday 3 April 11:12:07 UTC 2014

More than 30 years ago, the famous linguist Mark Aronoff joined Lila Gleitman and others who have gotten under-/over-estimating upside down– "Automobile Semantics", Linguistic Inquiry 1981: Makes are ranked according to price category. There are three such categories: lower-priced, mid-priced, and luxury. […] One of the results of the existence of ranks is that makes can be compared, regardless of … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Basic Bitch

Thursday 3 April 7:30:00 UTC 2014

1) one who has no personality; dull and irrelevant2) just an extra regular female 1) A female who think she ain't gotta give up ass to keep a man2) A basic bitch goes to the library to check her facebook3)A basic bitch has 2 kids and both of them are JR's [Link]

Language Log » Energize Complete Works

Thursday 3 April 5:58:23 UTC 2014

Jì Xiànlín 季羨林 (1911-2009), an old friend of mine, was China's greatest Indologist and Tocharian specialist (see this Wikipedia article, also in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Classical Chinese). His complete works in 18 volumes, Jì Xiànlín quánjí 季羨林全集, are available through Amazon and other online book services. What is strange is that the English translation of the title is given in … [Link]

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