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

languagehat.com » Anton kowolski vicki Chekhov.

Monday 23 March 23:42:24 UTC 2015

This has been posted on the Slavic academic listserv SEELANGS, and I thought it was intriguing enough to repost here: A few weeks ago I received a draft of a paper from a student who is a native speaker of Mandarin. The first line read: “Anton kowolski vicki Chekhov, as one of the most famous Russian short stories writer in … [Link]

languagehat.com » Trilby Before du Maurier.

Monday 23 March 19:58:25 UTC 2015

I’m reading an 1846 story by Elena Kube called “Oksana”; it’s your standard-issue tale of a young aristocrat who falls for and abandons a peasant girl, but it has a lovingly detailed description of hunting in the steppe that is a surprise coming from the pen of a woman (like most women authors of the day, she published under a … [Link]

Language Log » A Sino-English grammatical construction

Monday 23 March 12:36:56 UTC 2015

As I was preparing a recent post comparing Pekingese and Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) sentences, I encountered an unusual (to me) expression that, at first, I didn't know how to interpret, namely "笑CRY". The two morphemes (pronounced "xiàoCRY", one Chinese and one English, mean "laugh" and "cry". This "笑CRY" occurs adjectivally in the prefatory note to the list of two … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » unrequieted love

Monday 23 March 7:30:00 UTC 2015

when one person is in love with another and knows they don't love them back but just can't shut the f*ck up about it. she: we really need to talk….he: UGH!! ya know, we'd get along much better if you didn't speak.(she can't help herself, she's in unrequieted love…..) [Link]

languagehat.com » Monk.

Monday 23 March 0:24:41 UTC 2015

Another gem from Peter Brown’s Through the Eye of a Needle , providing a nice example of Latin peevery: There was nothing lukewarm or even particularly “liberal”—in a cozy modern sense—about Pelagius. He remained a layperson and shied away from the use of the originally Greek word “monk” (the “m-word,” which Jerome had brandished with gusto on every occasion so as … [Link]

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