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 » The Price of Wisdom

Tuesday 16 December 22:51:21 UTC 2014

Here's (some of) Google Street View for 7 Coulter Avenue in Ardmore PA: Why am I showing this to you? Read on… In Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice, which I've recently been re-reading for purely phonetic reasons, there's a passage where Larry ("Doc") Sportello takes Penny Kimball out to dinner. Penny is a Deputy D.A. who had previously tricked Doc into … [Link]

Language Log » The global language network

Tuesday 16 December 15:16:49 UTC 2014

Michael Erard has a nice discussion in Science magazine of a paper recently published in PNAS: "Want to influence the world? Map reveals the best languages to speak", 12/15/2014. The original paper is Shahar Ronen et al., "Links that speak: the global language network and its association with global fame", PNAS 2014. And there's a cute interactive visualization. But wait… no, … [Link]

Language Log » "X percent of Y are Z"

Tuesday 16 December 14:35:31 UTC 2014

It's amazing how troublesome simple percentage-talk can be. Donald McNeil Jr., "Fewer Ebola Cases Go Unreported Than Thought, Study Finds", NYT 12/16/2014 By looking at virus samples gathered in Sierra Leone and contract-tracing data from Liberia, the scientists working on the new study estimated that about 70 percent of cases in West Africa go unreported. That is far fewer than … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » back dimples

Tuesday 16 December 8:00:00 UTC 2014

the two indents on the lower back where the back bone meets the hips. aka sacral dimples, dimples of venus or pilonidal dimples. I absolutely love back dimples & find myself staring at girls' lower backs all the time! (a bit strange I know) – very sexy!! [Link]

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