John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons

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Language Stuff

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 » Um and Uh in Dutch

Tuesday 16 September 22:38:39 UTC 2014

Below is a guest post by Martijn Wieling, following up on a series of LLOG postings over the years on the effects of sex, age, geography and other factors on the relative frequency of the filler words um and uh: "Young men talk like old women", 11/6/2005; "Fillers: Autism, gender, and age", 7/30/2014; "More on UM and UH", 8/3/2014; "UM … [Link]

Language Log » Full fart

Tuesday 16 September 19:38:31 UTC 2014

Advertisement at a train stop in Oslo: Photograph courtesy of Alexy Khudyakov "Mest fart for pengene" means "most speed for the money". From that, you can figure out what "Full Fart" means. If you haven't already guessed, this is an advertisement for a mobile broadband service. This reminds me of the Swedish word "fartlek" ("speed play"), a type of athletic … [Link]

the world in words » Adam Gidwitz puts the grim back into Grimms’ fairy tales…and adds punk

Tuesday 16 September 18:52:19 UTC 2014

Illustration from a 1905 edition of Grimms' Fairy Tales. The dwarfs warn Snow White not to accept anything from strangers. (Illustration: Franz Jüttner, uploaded to Wikimedia Commins by Andreas Praefcke )Illustration from a 1905 edition of Grimms’ Fairy Tales. The dwarfs warn Snow White not to accept anything from strangers. (Illustration: Franz Jüttner, uploaded to Wikimedia Commins by Andreas Praefcke )Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty… they are some of the best-known stories of our time. But how well do we really know these and other fairy tales collected by the Brothers … [Link]

Language Log » Another casual lie from Charles Krauthammer

Tuesday 16 September 16:34:07 UTC 2014

"Krauthammer: 'Obama Clearly a Narcissist,' 'Lives In a Cocoon Surrounded By Sycophants'", Fox News 9/16/2014: "This is all because, I mean, count the number of times he uses the word I in any speech, and compare that to any other president. Remember when he announced the killing of bin Laden? That speech I believe had 29 references to I – … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Grammatical correctness and standard languages

Tuesday 16 September 15:52:16 UTC 2014

I got thinking standard languages and grammars today after reading an old post on Michal Boleslav Měchura’s blog Young, Single, Multilingual in which differences between standard and non-standard Irish language and grammar are discussed. One example is the use of the tag question ní tá instead of the standard nach bhfuil – the equivalent of isn’t it?, aren’t you?, etc. … [Link]

Language Log » At the Peevers' Jamboree

Tuesday 16 September 12:10:58 UTC 2014

Alison Flood at Guardian Books extracts a famous author's top linguistic peeves from an interview about how to teach writing ("Stephen King has named his most hated expressions. What are yours?", 9/15/2014), The Atlantic’s fantastic interview on teaching, writing and reading with Stephen King is well worth reading in full. […] But perhaps the most interesting part is where teacher … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » give it a goog

Tuesday 16 September 7:00:00 UTC 2014

When in doubt of an answer to ones question, this would be the response given in reference to the search engine Google to help them find their desired answer. Chanelle inquired about the location of the national capital of Lithuania.Having no knowledge of the subject, Ian replied with a simple "give it a goog". After said goog was given, the … [Link]

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