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 » Misleading headline
When you read this Radio Free Asia headline, what do you think? "China Holds Two Activists Linked to Heilongjiang Shooting Death" (5/20/15) Here's the photograph that accompanies the article: 
Activist Wu Gan stages protest outside Jiangxi High Court, May 19, 2015. Photo courtesy of Boxun. There are so many questions surrounding this extremely complicated and controversial case that one hardly … [Link]
Language Log » Digraphia and bilingualism in a Nissan ad
Photograph of a Chinese ad spotted in a Beijing elevator by David Moser, who also provided much of the analysis that follows: 
This ad offers some interesting digraphia / bilingualism phenomena. Note that the brand name "Nissan" appears prominently in English, but in characters ( 日产) only marginally and minimally. The company logo and slogan at the upper left is … [Link]
Language Log » Writing English with Chinese characters
Sign on a pet-grooming place in Banqiao, Taiwan (contributed by Mark Swofford): 
Dòugé chǒngwù měixuéguǎn 荳格寵物美學館 ("Douge / Dog Pet Grooming School") dòugé 荳格 (lit., "bean / pulse cell / grid") makes no sense in Chinese. It is the name of the school, but it is meant to evoke the English word "dog". Which reminds me of this: "Spelling with … [Link]
Language Log » Language of law, Chinese and English
Bill Hennessey is a retired professor of law, including international law and the law of the sea, at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. He wondered whether I have been following the Law of the Sea issues surrounding the building of Chinese bases on shoals in the South China Sea (SCS). (I call it the Southeast Asian Sea … [Link]
Omniglot blog » As pretty as a truck
An interesting French expression I learnt last week is beau comme un camion, which literally means “pretty as a truck/lorry”, and actually means pretty, cute or beautiful. Apparently this idiom appeared around the middle of the 20th century and was at first ironic, as few people find trucks pretty. However it came to mean graceful and beautiful, and the use … [Link]
languagehat.com » A Syriac Galen.
Mark Schrope has a riveting NY Times story that begins: The first time Grigory Kessel held the ancient manuscript, its animal-hide pages more than 1,000 years old, it seemed oddly familiar. A Syriac scholar at Philipps University in Marburg, Germany, Dr. Kessel was sitting in the library of the manuscript’s owner, a wealthy collector of rare scientific material in Baltimore. … [Link]
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