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 » Trailing modifiers can be dangerous

Sunday 23 August 20:51:26 UTC 2015

Lamiat Sabin, "Man rattled by python found coiled up and hiding in his box of cornflakes", The Independent 3/9/2015. A man claims to have had a real-life kitchen nightmare after he saw a long coiled-up snake poke its head out of his box of cereal. Jarred Smith, 22, was making lunch on Tuesday when he spotted the two-metre diamond python … [Link]

Language Log » Steampunk phonetics

Sunday 23 August 18:30:31 UTC 2015

From the Transactions of the Philological Society, 1873-74, "VIII. — On the Physical Constituents of Accent and Emphasis: By Alexander J. Ellis, Esq., President": Phonautographic Sound-curves. Any disturbance in the air produces a series of alternate condensations and rarefactions, which, coming in contact with the drum of the ear, cause it to vibrate, in such a manner as to produce, … [Link]

Language Log » The Humble Petition of WHO and WHICH

Sunday 23 August 12:23:44 UTC 2015

In 1711, long before E.B. White over-interpreted the Fowler brothers and sent out mobs of zombified prescriptivists to hunt down whiches, Joseph Addison gave us "The Humble Petition of WHO and WHICH", The Spectator 78: ' The humble Petition of WHO and WHICH, ' SHEWETH, ' THAT your petitioners being in a forlorn and destitute condition, know not to whom … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » ratchrat

Sunday 23 August 7:00:00 UTC 2015

A ratchet ass club rat Nene's clubbing routine for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday include going to Origin, the Grand, Bootie SF, and when everyone else wants to go home, she rounds up the troops to head to The End Up.Wow, what a ratchrat.Dude, i know. [Link]

Omniglot blog » Language quiz

Sunday 23 August 5:00:15 UTC 2015

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

languagehat.com » Grekos.

Sunday 23 August 0:47:55 UTC 2015

Back in 2007 I posted about an old Russian epithet for Greeks, пиндос [pindós], that has come to be directed at Americans; in reading Serafimovich (see this post) I’ve run across another one, грекос [grekós], which is obviously straight from Greek γραικός [γrekós]. The ragged elements of the Red Army (with associated sailors, families, and livestock) are making their hungry … [Link]

Archive