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 » Nervous cluelessness and getting there first

Saturday 24 January 21:58:54 UTC 2015

An email correspondent working for someone who is (evidently) a clueless would-be grammar purist appealed to me recently for help: I am working with a client who insists that it is grammatically incorrect to use Get There First as a tag line. For the life of us, we cannot figure out what is grammatically incorrect about this phrase. Can you … [Link]

Language Log » Biblical Philology: An Exhaustive Treatment

Saturday 24 January 20:54:29 UTC 2015

From Joshua Tyra: [Link]

Language Log » All ADJ and shit

Saturday 24 January 15:23:10 UTC 2015

Howard Oakley ("Birth of a new English phrase", 1/23/2015) was struck by the phrase "all proper and shit", in the context of a tweet by Christopher Phin noting that "[choice of printing mode] makes my writing seem all proper and shit". So Howard investigated the history of that four-word sequence by means of various web search tools. I strongly support … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Vituperation

Saturday 24 January 14:29:27 UTC 2015

When searching for a translation of a Czech song we’re learning in the Bangor Community Choir I came across the word vituperated. It’s not one I’d heard or seen before, see I had to look it up. It means “to abuse or censure severely or abusively, to berate; to use harsh condemnatory language”. It comes from the Latin vituperatus, the … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » percentage advantage

Saturday 24 January 8:00:00 UTC 2015

The deciding factor of who gets the car phone charger. The lowest battery power always gets the charging port first. Hand over the the charger quick before my phone goes dead!. At five percent battery I've got the percentage advantage on you guys. [Link]

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