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
Omniglot blog » Totes amazesh!
According to an article I found the other day, some people on Twitter are playing with language in interesting ways and creating new abbreviations and words like tradge (tragic), bluebs (blueberries), emosh (emotional) and hilars (hilarious) and atrosh (atrocious). This phenomenon has been dubbed totesing by the linguists Lauren Spradlin and Taylor Jones, who have collected and analyzed many examples … [Link]
Language Log » Love transformed
With the title "Yeah… that totally translates to 'love'", imgur presents the following image: 
As soon as I took one look at it, I thought the glyph must be some sort of stylization or deformation of the character ài 愛 ("love"). Perhaps I'm slower on the uptake than others when it comes to this sort of thing, but I had … [Link]
Language Log » A new expression in Cantonese
Next Media's Apple Daily (1/23/16) had an article with this headline: Gǎngdàshēng guà xīn xiàomíng kàng chìhuà 港大生掛「新校名」抗赤化 "Hong Kong University students hang [a banner with] the 'new school name' to resist redification" A large photograph accompanying the article shows the students hanging the banner with the following words written on it: Xiānggǎng shì dì yī Rénmín Dàxué 香港市第一人民大學 "First … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » tanstafl
There Ain't No Such Thing as A Free Lunch. Very old slang, dating back to before ain't became a legitimate English contraction. I means that a prospect is too good to be true(TGTBT), in that you are being offered something for nothing. Nate: Your eMail says Bill Gates will give you $250 for each person you send this to that … [Link]
Language Log » Inching toward digraphia, with a note on the universality myth
The subject of digraphia in China often comes up in our discussions about the Chinese writing system on Language Log (always be sure to check the comments on the posts, because much good material is often added in them), e.g.: "Digraphia and intentional miswriting " (3/12/15) "Substituting Pinyin for unknown Chinese characters " (12/3/13) "Creeping Romanization in Chinese " (8/30/12) … [Link]
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