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

Language Log » The shape of a spoken phrase in Spanish

Friday 29 May 19:58:03 UTC 2015

Or maybe in Chilean Spanish; more specifically in the Audible audiobook version of Isabel Allende's La Casa de los Espiritus: The number of phrases averaged in those plots: Word Count # of Phrases 1 695 2 2,772 3 6,021 4 9,756 5 12,620 6 15,030 7 16,170 8 16,048 9 14,238 10 13,020 11 11,429 12 10,980 13 8,437 14 … [Link]

Language Log » Blatter beast

Friday 29 May 19:48:52 UTC 2015

Is it just me, or does "Sepp Blatter" sound like the name of an alien creature in a Star Wars episode or some other sci-fi story? Put together the sep of (e.g.) septic tank of corruption and the blatter of Douglas Adams's ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal and you've really got a name that phonologically conjures up a monstrous creature … [Link]

Language Log » Cassia Forest

Friday 29 May 17:01:44 UTC 2015

Chilin Shih is spending the summer doing fieldwork in China, and she has started a weblog, Cassia Forest, to document her journey. There are two posts so far. I've posted a sample of the beginnings below — you should read the whole thing! Anonymous 無名: My grandmother has no name. I once was angry. How can anyone have no name? … [Link]

languagehat.com » Ethnogenesis and Language.

Friday 29 May 15:11:23 UTC 2015

Another great passage from Wickham’s The Inheritance of Rome (see this post and this post): It is this process that has been called ‘ethnogenesis’ by Herwig Wolfram and his school: the recognition that ethnic identities were flexible, malleable, ‘situational constructs’; the same ‘barbarian’ in sixth-century Italy could be Rugian, and Ostrogothic, and (though only after the east Roman reconquest) even … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Kidcessory

Friday 29 May 7:00:00 UTC 2015

A child had by a celebrity just for the attention. Usually given a bizarre name, because who cares what the child has to go through growing up, they're just a kidcessory. D'ya hear? Kimye had a kidcessory and named it North West. [Link]

Archive