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 » Unserdeutsch.

Tuesday 19 April 21:41:54 UTC 2016

This (an anonymous post on deutschland.de) is quite a story: “Du geht wo, Du essen was?” Anyone who speaks German will doubtless understand this question despite its somewhat clumsy grammar. It is in fact German, however – or more precisely “Unserdeutsch” (i.e. Our German), a creole language that is at risk of dying out. A language is described as creole … [Link]

Language Log » 7/11

Tuesday 19 April 15:49:29 UTC 2016

A lovely example of a Fay-Cutler malapropism, i.e. a lexical substitution error: Your browser does not support the audio element. I think what I want to do is I want to talk just for second I wrote this out and it's very close to my heart because I was down there and I watch our police and our firemen down … [Link]

Language Log » Debate words

Tuesday 19 April 13:48:53 UTC 2016

As I mentioned a few days ago ("More political text analytics", 4/15/2016), I've now got more-or-less cleaned-up text from the 21 debates held so far in the current U.S. presidential campaign. [Update — with some help from Chris Culy, I've done additional clean-up on the debate texts, and therefore have revised the numbers in this post slightly, as of 4/23/2016. … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » battery operated boyfriend (bob)

Tuesday 19 April 7:06:42 UTC 2016

A vibrator or sometimes a dildo. For when you don't have a steady male companion and/or when he can't get you off. Person1: You been seeing anyone lately? Person2: No, it's just been me and BOB or a while now. Person1: Bob? Person2: Yeah my battery operated boyfriend (bob). [Link]

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