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 » Applenese

Wednesday 10 September 12:18:54 UTC 2014

I remember Apple's Mother's Day advertising campaign for the iPad Air and iPad mini last spring: "A gift Mom will love opening. Again and again." I only found out yesterday, in this article, that the Mainland Chinese translation of this tagline is the following: Ràng māmā kāixīn de lǐwù, kāile yòu kāi. 让妈妈开心的礼物,开了又开. The grammar cannot be faulted, and the … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » net neutrality

Wednesday 10 September 7:00:00 UTC 2014

An idea whereby all access to the collective Internets is equal. Where no limits on different throughputs or access to services are placed. Senator Stevens on Net Neutrality: The internet is not something that you just dump something on… It's not a big truck, it's a series of tubes! You sir, are an idiot! [Link]

languagehat.com » Little Words.

Wednesday 10 September 0:44:02 UTC 2014

An NPR interview with James Pennebaker (whose book The Secret Life of Pronouns I briefly discussed here) brings up some interesting points: One of the things that Pennebaker did was record and transcribe conversations that took place between people on speed dates. He fed these conversations into his program along with information about how the people themselves were perceiving the … [Link]

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