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

languagehat.com » Nupepa.

Saturday 29 August 23:53:18 UTC 2015

Nupepa is: Another place to talk about Hawaiian-Language Newspapers! Please note that these are not translations, but if anything they are just works in progress. Hopefully the English gets across the overall intent of the articles. Please comment if you come across misreads or anything else you think is important! It’s lots of fun if you enjoy Hawaiian and/or old … [Link]

Language Log » Trump on China

Saturday 29 August 23:47:38 UTC 2015

Great material for a unit on prosody, from Ben Craw: (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/~ fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); [Link]

Language Log » More on various types of whatever(s)

Saturday 29 August 12:55:12 UTC 2015

Yesterday, we saw that in the publications indexed by Google Scholar, phrases like "two types of hypothesis|hypotheses" and "three kinds of question|questions" run about 75% plural; and a search in the Google ngram viewer supports the opinion of some people that there may be a tendency for Brits to prefer the singular and Americans the plural ("Various types of whatever(s)"). … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Porn Hangover

Saturday 29 August 7:00:00 UTC 2015

I word used to describe when a person jacks off to much to porn and cant do anything for a few hours. I was having such a bad porn hangover last night that i couldnt go out. [Link]

Language Log » Mind your head

Saturday 29 August 1:23:35 UTC 2015

For some reason, the expression xiǎoxīn 小心 (lit., "little heart" –> "[be] careful") often throws Chinese translators into a tailspin. "Crimes against English " (4/25/15) "Free souvenirs " (8/15/15) "Sandwiched in an escalator " (2/9/15) "Signs from Kashgar to Delhi " (10/11/13) and the classic, standard Chinglish "Slip carefully " (5/6/14) Perhaps more so than for any other short warning … [Link]

languagehat.com » Harvard Sentences.

Saturday 29 August 0:31:43 UTC 2015

The Harvard Sentences are a set of phonetically balanced sentences used for testing audio circuits. If you’ve ever wanted to hear them spoken aloud, the Open Speech Repository has you covered: American English, British English. They also have files in Mandarin, French, and Hindi. (Thanks, Trevor!) [Link]

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