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

languagehat.com » Absolute English.

Sunday 8 February 23:50:45 UTC 2015

Michael D Gordin writes in Aeon: If you can read this sentence, you can talk with a scientist. Well, maybe not about the details of her research, but at least you would share a common language. The overwhelming majority of communication in the natural sciences today – physics, chemistry, biology, geology – takes place in English; in print and at … [Link]

Language Log » Can 50,000 Wikipedia edits be wrong?

Sunday 8 February 18:28:38 UTC 2015

Or alternatively, were 50,000 Wikipedia word choices actually errors to start with? Andrew McMillen, "Meet the Ultimate WikiGnome: One Man’s Quest to Rid Wikipedia of Exactly One Grammatical Mistake", Medium 2/3/2015: On a Friday in July 2012, two employees of the Wikimedia Foundation gave a talk at Wikimania, their organization’s annual conference. Maryana Pinchuk and Steven Walling addressed a packed … [Link]

Language Log » This never occurred to me…

Sunday 8 February 15:55:54 UTC 2015

Email from CGY.: I recently read a BBC article detailing some of your work into the uses of 'uh' and 'um' in germanic languages: Ari Daniel Shapiro, "Why we are saying "uh" less and 'um' more", PRI's The World, BBC News 2/7/2014. I am not a linguist of any sort however I thought you may find some interest in my … [Link]

Language Log » REAPER

Sunday 8 February 13:47:37 UTC 2015

A couple of days ago, I mentioned ("Sarah Koenig", 2/5/2015) that David Talkin was releasing a new pitch tracking program called REAPER (available from github at the link). After a few minor improvements in documentation, it's ready for the general public. The reaper program uses the EpochTracker class to simultaneously estimate the location of voiced-speech "epochs" or glottal closure instants … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Language quiz

Sunday 8 February 10:56:38 UTC 2015

Here’s a recording in a mystery language. Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken? FacebookTwitter Google+Share [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Dropping Faces

Sunday 8 February 8:00:00 UTC 2015

To spend cash on a purchase – references the faces on dollar bills. "I see you got cash today.""Yeah, Im dropping faces for once." [Link]

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