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 » Chinese Dream: Flying nine days
From Fangyi Cheng: 
Zhōngguó mèng fēi jiǔtiān 中国梦飞九天 ("China's Dream soars beyond the highest heaven") The Chinglish translation on the sign is from Baidu Fanyi or Bing Translator. tiān 天 has a multiplicity of meanings: day, sky, heaven(s), God. weather, nature, season, celestial, overhead. Here jiǔtiān 九天 means not "nine days", but "the Ninth Heaven; the highest of heavens; the … [Link]
Language Log » The future of Chinese language learning is now
When I began learning Mandarin nearly half a century ago, I knew exactly how I wanted to acquire proficiency in the language. Nobody had to tell me how to do this; I knew it instinctively. The main features of my desired regimen would be to: 1. pay little or no attention to memorizing characters (I would have been content with … [Link]
languagehat.com » Gazdanov’s Languages.
I find it hard to believe I’ve never mentioned Gaito Gazdanov on this blog, but the site search tells me it is so. I’m pretty sure I’d never heard of him before I wandered into the late lamented Donnell Library (see this post), shortly after my arrival in NYC in 1981, and stood, mouth agape, in the midst of its … [Link]
World Wide Words: Updates » New online: Cacoethes
'Cacoethes' is an uncontrollable urge to do something. [Link]
World Wide Words: Updates » New online: Box of birds
The New Zealand expression 'box of birds' can be traced to a nineteenth-century Briticism. [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » pluto booty
When a girl has a butt that is so small, that some consider it nonexistent. Boy: Damn, that girl's back goes straight down to her thighs. That's a Pluto booty if I've ever seen one!
[Link]
languagehat.com » Mashinski at Mount Holyoke.
I made it to the reading at Mount Holyoke College last night (see this post), and I’m very glad I did: Irina Mashinski is not only a wonderful poet but a wonderful reader of her own poetry, and there’s little I like as well as hearing good poetry read well (by which I mean musically, not dramatically — I can … [Link]
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