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

Language Log » Lojban just got harder

Sunday 5 April 16:55:03 UTC 2015

Matt Treyvaud forwarded this from the Lojban mailing list: "Lojban changes to hanzi writing system" (4/1/15) Some people complained that although the spelling in Lojban is very easy to grasp the grammar is not. So the committee for the development of Lojban (BPFK) decided to fix this issue and to make the spelling hard as well. Especially for those people … [Link]

Wordorigins.org » gospel

Sunday 5 April 12:58:00 UTC 2015

The word gospel has a rather straightforward etymology. It’s an alteration of the Old English godspell, a compound of god (good) + spell (news, account). In Old English usage the meaning was not restricted to the four books of the Christian Bible that detail the life of Christ—although it was used in that restricted sense too—but the word could also … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Easter Bunny

Sunday 5 April 7:30:00 UTC 2015

An exceptionally large lagomorph that died for our sins (or was that Jesus?) and, during the month of April, delivers delectable candy treats to all the good little Gentile boys and girls of the world. On Easter’s Eve, the Easter Bunny arises from his tomb to spread good tidings and tooth-rotting chocolate Christ statuettes to all. [Link]

Omniglot blog » Language quiz

Sunday 5 April 6:32:40 UTC 2015

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

Language Log » Old School

Sunday 5 April 6:09:03 UTC 2015

PhD comics for 3/25/2015: Of course, email is "old school" in the sense of "15 years ago", since 20 or 25 years ago, most students didn't have an email account. But anyhow, this can be a real-world problem, especially for large classes, since schools generally don't yet offer a utility for txting all the students enrolled in a given course, … [Link]

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