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 » Officer-involved passives
Radley Balko's Washington Post article "The curious grammar of police shootings" begins by reminding us about "mistakes were made" (an utterance so famous that it has its own Wikipedia page), and proceeds to quote a description of a shooting that is not by a policeman ("The suspect produced a semi-automatic handgun and fired numerous times striking the victim in the … [Link]
Omniglot blog » Ultracrepidarianism
Are you an ultracrepidiarianist? Or maybe that should be ultracrepidiarian. Many of us are. An ultracrepidarianism is someone who makes a habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside their knowledge or competence. It’s a word I came across in Think Like a Freak, and interesting book by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. According to Wikipedia, ultracrepidarianism … [Link]
Language Log » Word Crimes
For his new album Mandatory Fun, Weird Al Yankovic has crafted the ultimate peever's anthem: "Word Crimes," to the tune of last summer's big hit, "Blurred Lines." It's a cleverly composed parody, despite the inevitable "cunning linguist" joke: I hate these word crimes You really need a Full-time proofreader You dumb mouthbreather Well, you should hire Some cunning linguist To … [Link]
Language Log » The rice is prosperous
Here follows an egregious example of bad machine translation without human intervention to correct or improve it. This is a listing for a book in Chinese on Amazon. Pinyin as given in the listing: dao sheng he fu de jing ying zhi hui [ fu zeng / xue xi shou ce qi che ban lv ] Chinese characters as given … [Link]
Wordorigins.org » Word Origins Quiz
Medievalists.net has this twenty-question quiz that asks you to guess whether words come from Old English or not. Try it out. (I got twenty out of twenty. Any less would have been embarrassing.) [Discuss this post] [Link]
Wordorigins.org » Word Origins Quiz
Medievalists.net has this twenty-question quiz that asks you to guess whether words come from Old English or not. Try it out. (I got twenty out of twenty. Any less would have been embarrassing.) [Discuss this post] [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » bo$$ ass bitch
A boss ass bitch is a woman who goes above and beyond simply being a bad bitch. While she is not the baddest she is above several bad bitches an you can't step to her. She keep her money right, game tight, and she'll beat a bitch ass all night. Most ratchets like to call themselves Boss Ass Bitches when … [Link]
languagehat.com » Around DH in 80 Days.
Michael Hendry sent me this link, to “a story about a project to crowdsource (with more accuracy than that usually implies) the proofing and on-line publication of all 90 volumes of Tolstoi’s works,” and then added “a lot of the other things on the site (Around the Digital Humanities in 80 Days) look like they would be of interest to … [Link]
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