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 » New Cantonese word

Monday 8 December 23:51:30 UTC 2014

Simon Pettersson called my attention to a new and popular Hong Kong word that's spreading fast: gau1wu1 鳩嗚 ("shopping"). It's a rendering of the Mandarin word gòuwù 購物 in Cantonese created by picking characters that sound like the Mandarin word when read in Cantonese. Additionally, gau1 鳩 (jiū in Mandarin) officially means "dove", but is mostly used in Hong Kong … [Link]

languagehat.com » Agantuk.

Monday 8 December 21:53:14 UTC 2014

My wife and I just watched Satyajit Ray’s last film, Agantuk (The Stranger, 1991; my brother gave it to me as part of the Criterion Eclipse series, Late Ray — thanks, Eric!). It’s a superb movie that goes straight onto my list of Best Films I’ve Ever Seen, but that in itself wouldn’t warrant a LH post; what does is … [Link]

Language Log » Do not dumb here

Monday 8 December 16:15:13 UTC 2014

This photo was originally posted on Reddit/Imgur in Oct. 2013, but it continues to circulate (Victor Steinbok recently came across it on Facebook): Koko ni gomi o sutenaide kudasai ここにゴミを捨てないで下さい ("Please don't throw [dispose of] trash here.") In other words, don't DUMP your garbage here; that would be very DUMB. This being Japan, and inside a tidy building, I don't … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » eboli

Monday 8 December 8:30:00 UTC 2014

Mixing up Ebola] and E-Coli. used by the under-informed population when trying to sound intellectual by talking about current events, but they get the two diseases confused and think they are the same thing. My Grandpa cracks me up – last night after watching the news he declared to my Dad that "That damn Obama is to blame for this … [Link]

languagehat.com » Digitizing Old Russian Books.

Monday 8 December 0:54:18 UTC 2014

Georgy Manaev reports on an admirable project: In the mid-2000s, the Russian State Library (RSL) launched the National Electronic Library project with the aim of digitizing books published before 1831. Many important texts have already been scanned; from the hand-written Archangel Gospel of 1092 – the fourth oldest known East Slavonic manuscript – to the Octoechos, a book of Orthodox … [Link]

Archive