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 » Translating Smartphone Technology.
A short but interesting Economist piece about efforts to create technological terms for speakers of smaller languages: Ousmane sweats under a tin roof as he thumbs through a Chinese smartphone that he is selling at the technology market in Bamako, Mali. Words in French, Mali’s official language, scroll down the screen. “A ka nyi?” (Is it good?) a customer asks … [Link]
Language Log » Biomedical nerdview
My new hobby, as Randall Munroe sometimes says, is asking biomedical researchers what "sensitivity" and "specificity" mean. The modal response is "Um, yes, I always have to look those up". But recently, preparing a homework assignment about the evaluation of binary classifiers, I had a flash of insight. My new insight answers one of the questions I've always had about … [Link]
Omniglot blog » Can’t do it for toffee
There’s an interesting idiom in British English that means that you are bad at doing something – you can’t do it for toffee. Apparently a US equivalent is can’t do something for beans. The equivalent of this phrase in French is il n’est pas fichu de faire qch and in Welsh it’s nid yw’n medru gwneud rhywbeth am ffortiwn. Are … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » walks both sides of the street
Country slang for a bisexual Bruce over there walks both sides of the street. That's why he's so popular.
[Link]
languagehat.com » Pawpaw French.
My wife called immediately after driving off to do some shopping to tell me to turn on the radio — NPR was doing a language story. It turned out to be this one, about a French dialect that’s quickly disappearing in southeastern Missouri: Pawpaw French — named after a local fruit-bearing tree — is a linguistic bridge that melds a … [Link]
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