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 » Manigrula.

Tuesday 17 March 13:52:32 UTC 2015

A correspondent wrote to ask about a word she remembered her late mother using. Her mother was born in 1921 and grew up in a part of Montreal that had a lot of immigrants; her family was Irish-Canadian but her best friend was Italian and her neighbors were Polish, Ukrainian, and Chinese: Anyway, Mom learned bits and pieces of other … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Nemocnice

Tuesday 17 March 12:36:13 UTC 2015

One of the Czech lessons I studied yesterday included the word nemocnice (hospital), and though I hadn’t seen or heard it before, I was familiar with the word nemocný (ill; sick) and guessed from the context that nemocnice was a hospital. It feels good to be able to work out the meanings of words from their form and context, and … [Link]

Language Log » Smoothies, schmoudees, smuuhsies, whatever

Tuesday 17 March 12:29:30 UTC 2015

On Facebook, Bert Vaux posted about a fascinating bit of Danish loanword phonology. While watching the Danish show Borgen last night I noticed that Kasper, when talking about ordering a smoothie, first said [smu:di] and then later said [smu:ði]. The first form in particular but also the variation pleased me, so I asked Anna Jespersen about it and look at … [Link]

Language Log » Himba color perception

Tuesday 17 March 12:14:31 UTC 2015

Below is an email message from Steve Mah, posted with his permission. It follows up on my post "It's not easy seeing green", 3/2/2015, about the experiment on Himba color perception shown in the 2011 BBC documentary "Do you see what I see?" (video available here). I've also appended an earlier email from Jules Davidoff to Paul Kay, telling essentially … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » You're aces with me

Tuesday 17 March 7:30:00 UTC 2015

It means the person thinks highly of you, you have their respect. I don't know who you are, but you're aces with me. [Link]

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