John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons

John Gordon Ross header image 3

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 » Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015)

Thursday 5 February 21:12:35 UTC 2015

Suzette Haden Elgin, a linguist and feminist science fiction writer, died on January 27 at the age of 78. From io9: Suzette Haden Elgin, who died last week, was a pioneer of using linguistics in science fiction, creating a whole constructed language in her novel Native Tongue. She was a giant of feminist SF. And she helped bring SF poetry to … [Link]

Language Log » The latest word soup from the Bloomberg headline crew

Thursday 5 February 20:00:11 UTC 2015

Bloomberg News headlines, as we've observed in the past, often sound like they've been written by someone with a bizarre journalistic strain of aphasia. Consider, as representative samples, "Ebola Fear Stalks Home Hunt for Quarantined Now Released" and "Madonna Addicted to Sweat Dance Plugs Toronto Condos: Mortgages." The latest specimen is especially inscrutable: As usual, the reader is compelled to … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » sadventure

Thursday 5 February 8:00:00 UTC 2015

A sad adventure or an adventure undertaken by a sad person or sad people. "I thought we'd have a good time but it turned out to be a sadventure." [Link]

languagehat.com » Everett’s Five Favorite Linguistics Books.

Thursday 5 February 1:49:03 UTC 2015

John Emerson sent me this Five Books interview with Daniel L. Everett (of Pirahã fame), saying “I find it very interesting”; I responded, “It is indeed. It grates on me to read praise for Chomsky and Wittgenstein, but I enjoyed reading it and learning about those important doorstop books I’ll never read.” (There was a long and, uh, vigorous LH … [Link]

Archive

No Comments

0 responses so far ↓

  • There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.

You must log in to post a comment.