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

Language Log » Translating Chinese poetry is hard

Friday 4 April 19:05:06 UTC 2014

Wei Shao sent me this photograph of the English translation of a famous Chinese poem: (Click to embiggen.) Here's the story of how this translation came to be. The author, who posted it on Renren (Chinese clone of Facebook), said he was caught doing English homework in a Chinese class by his Chinese teacher. The teacher was angry and punished … [Link]

Language Log » "When there's no Hebrew word for something, it's a bad idea"

Friday 4 April 12:44:21 UTC 2014

From Pat Robertson's 700 Club, 3/31/2014: As I recall, the Hebrew parts of the Bible have no difficulty in referring to many things that are officially regarded as Bad Ideas (not that I mean to Affirm the Consequent here). And there certainly seem to me to be biblical passages in which the notion of fairness comes up, e.g. Isaiah 11:4, … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » usie

Friday 4 April 7:30:00 UTC 2014

A group selfie; a picture one takes with themselves and many others in the photo. One takes an usie to be silly with friends and have fun taking random pictures of themselves. Guys, let's take an usie!! [Link]

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