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

Language Log » Transitive marvel wonders reader

Sunday 7 September 20:38:06 UTC 2014

From J.M.: Am I misreading this cryptic headline (I do confess my severe deficiency of "urban cool"), or has "marvel" become a transitive verb, a synonym for "amaze"? "Rihanna front row as Wang urban cool marvels New York", AFP 9/7/2014. In fact, this is Old (well, at least Middle or Early Modern English) News. From the OED, sense 6. "To … [Link]

languagehat.com » Liberman on Kibosh.

Sunday 7 September 19:54:52 UTC 2014

We’ll probably never know where the wonderful slang word kibosh comes from, but Anatoly Liberman has a fine roundup of some interesting recent theories that is worth your attention; J. Peter Maher traces it to French caboche ‘head (informal),’ Stephen Goranson to kurbash ‘a long whip made of hippopotamus or rhinoceros hide used as an instrument of punishment in parts … [Link]

Language Log » Experience the power of the bookbook™

Sunday 7 September 12:31:51 UTC 2014

From Ikea and ad agency BBH: And feel the force of Contrastive Focus Reduplication™. I think it's time for a little research — and LLOG readers are exactly the right source of evidence. The standard reference on this topic is Jila Ghomeshi, Ray Jackendoff, Nicole Rosen, and Kevin Russell, "Contrastive focus reduplication in English (the Salad-Salad paper) ", Natural Language … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Language quiz

Sunday 7 September 9:10:30 UTC 2014

Here’s a recording in a mystery language. Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken? Share [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » swollorexic

Sunday 7 September 7:00:00 UTC 2014

When you are already swoll as fuck. But you think you still need to get swoll as fuck. It's like a sickness. Me: "Bro you're swoll as fuck" Friend: "nahh man I don't think I swoll enough" Me: "Bro I think you're swollorexic" [Link]

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