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 » Fairy Ann.
Back in 2006, we here at LH (always ahead of the curve) discussed the WWI-era Tommyfied French “san fairy Ann” (ça ne fait rien); now Mark Liberman has posted about it at the Log, spurred by David Shariatmadari’s “That eggcorn moment” (“If you’ve been signalled out by friends for saying ‘when all is set and done’, you’re not alone – … [Link]
Language Log » Newsworthy crash blossoms
The current BBC home page has some breaking news about Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond: 
My first thought on reading this was that it's rather late in the day for Salmond to be going after the No vote, considering No already won handily. Then I realized it's not go after as in "pursue," but rather go + after — … [Link]
Omniglot blog » Maeldy
I came across an interesting word in my Welsh dictionary – maeldy [ˈmaːɨldɨ̬ / ˈmaildɪ] – which is an old word for shop. The normal Welsh word for shop is siop, which sounds like shop. I had wondered if there was a another word for shop other than the one borrowed from English, now I know. Maeldy comes from mael … [Link]
Language Log » Sex, age, and pronouns on Facebook
Andy Schwartz and others at the World Well-Being Project have worked with "Facebook posts from over 75,000 volunteers who also took the standard Interpersonal Personality Item Pool (IPIP) personality test to measure the 'Big Five' personality traits", looking for linguistic features that correlate with those aspects of personality measured by that test. Lyle Ungar talked about this work a few … [Link]
Language Log » Fairy Ann
David Shariatmadari, "That eggcorn moment: If you’ve been signalled out by friends for saying ‘when all is set and done’, you’re not alone – linguists even have a word for it", The Guardian 9/16/2014: Learning your mother tongue might seem effortless, but doesn’t always go without a hitch. In particular, you may hear certain sets of words and break them … [Link]
Language Log » Matched guise among the tombstones
Lawrence Block's 1992 novel A Walk Among the Tombstones has been made into a recently-released movie. I haven't seen the movie, but in the book, the character TJ carries out what sociolinguists would call a "matched guise experiment". This is a technique for measuring language attitudes by having the same speaker read a passage in two different ways, and asking … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » acquaintance zoned
Similar to being friend zoned, only far worse.While being friend zoned can sometimes produce a friend, being acquaintance zoned produces nothing. Josh: So how did asking out Sarah go?Larry: Not well at all. No interest.Josh: Friend zoned?Larry: Worse. Acquaintance zoned.
[Link]
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