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 » Geas.

Wednesday 3 September 23:56:59 UTC 2014

I just finished Charles Stross’s The Atrocity Archives (thanks, bulbul!), and I enjoyed it greatly, barring some moral concerns about using the Holocaust as a plot mechanism for a light-hearted fantasy/sf/spy thriller with a touch of romantic comedy (because I am a tiresome old fart). Stross has fun mingling terms from modern computer geekery and (pseudo-)ancient Magick, and one of … [Link]

Language Log » The paucity of two-letter words

Wednesday 3 September 15:25:10 UTC 2014

The number of possible two-letter lower-case strings over the English alphabet (not including the apostrophe) is 262 = 676. This morning I ran a script to test which two-letter sequences show up as words included in the standard 25,143-word list of words supplied with many Unix-derived systems (usually at /usr/share/dict/words). I found the proportion of two-letter sequences that are 2-letter … [Link]

Language Log » Technicality Club

Wednesday 3 September 11:48:22 UTC 2014

The first panel of the most recent SMBC: Turns out that Technicality Club is really Natural Language Semantics. Or maybe Statutory Interpretation, I'm not sure: The AfterComic: [Note for those without a classical education…] [Link]

Omniglot blog » Interesting!

Wednesday 3 September 10:02:47 UTC 2014

The word interesting can have a variety of meanings, depending on how you say it and the context in which you use it. At least it does in British English. The basic definition is “inspiring interest; absorbing” [source]. It comes from the noun interest (legal claim or right; concern; benefit, advantage), from the Anglo-French interesse (what one has a legal … [Link]

Language Log » Metaphors and the brain: check it out

Wednesday 3 September 10:01:32 UTC 2014

"Your Brain on Metaphors", at the The Chronicle of Higher Education's site, is interesting non-technical reading for anyone interested in the idea of experimentation on metaphors, idioms, and the way the brain processes them. I recommend reading the whole thing. [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » lost in textation

Wednesday 3 September 7:30:00 UTC 2014

The awkward part of texting where the context of a conversation is lost without vocal and facial aid. What would normally be a joke or sarcastic comment comes off as an insult. He got really mad at me so I guess he didn't get the joke. t was definitely lost in textation. [Link]

languagehat.com » Translations of the Stalin Epigram.

Wednesday 3 September 0:38:13 UTC 2014

Ian Probstein has a post at Jacket2 presenting Mandelstam’s notorious “Stalin Epigram” in the original Russian and three translations, including his own, and discussing various aspects of the poem and problems of rendering it into English verse, which of course is intensely interesting to me. We discussed the poem a few years ago, but only in the context of the … [Link]

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