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 » The Grammar of Cuisine.

Sunday 21 June 20:46:44 UTC 2015

Back in September I posted about Dan Jurafsky’s book The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu ; I’ve just gotten around to reading the TLS review (subscribers only) from last December, and I’m happy to report that the TLS assigned the review to an actual linguist, Kerstin Hoge (University Lecturer in German Linguistics at Oxford), so it’s well informed … [Link]

Language Log » Take off that broccoli!

Sunday 21 June 14:24:50 UTC 2015

From Stephen Dodson: It took me a minute to parse this headline correctly: Bill Pennington, "‘Like Putting on Broccoli,’ or Cauliflower, and Results Are Bumpy", NYT 6/20/2015. [Link]

Language Log » Lift Trappings: a locally-emergent collocation?

Sunday 21 June 14:18:43 UTC 2015

One of the benefits of travel is exposure to new ways of expressing things. Sometimes it's different metaphors — the French connect parallel-parking slots and appointment times with battlements, for example — but often it's just apparently-arbitrary differences in word choices. On Thursday and Friday I was in London, and was therefore reminded of familiar trans-Atlantic vocabulary differences like lift … [Link]