John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons

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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

Omniglot blog » Hybrid languages

Tuesday 24 May 20:08:24 UTC 2016

There is some interesting discussion about hybrid languages on episodes of the the World in Words podcast that I listened recently. One episode discuss Chiac, a combination of Acadian French and English spoken in New Brunswick in Canada. Examples include: – J’ai backé mon car dans la driveway – Je prends un large double Americano pour sortir This form of … [Link]

languagehat.com » A Distorted Etymology.

Tuesday 24 May 14:20:04 UTC 2016

This is a very minor issue, but it amused me, so I’m passing it along: in chapter 4 of Gorham’s Speaking in Soviet Tongues (see this post), he is discussing the difficulty of writers (and beginning writers, in the shape of workers’ and village correspondents) in dealing with the confusing variety of forms of speech available in the early 1920s, … [Link]

Language Log » About those grilled fevers…

Tuesday 24 May 9:00:03 UTC 2016

From Steve Kass: My brother is traveling in Portugal and posted this on Instagram. That’s all I know. I bet our readers can figure out what Portuguese words were naively mistranslated to create this list — and perhaps even finger the dictionary or translation app responsible. For example, I suspect that "Interspersed" might be a mistranslation of (the Portuguese word … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Boner Narcolepsy

Tuesday 24 May 7:00:00 UTC 2016

A boner so strong that it drains the blood from your brain and causes you to faint We saw a nice piece of ass walk by and Tim fainted from Boner Narcolepsy. I had no idea he had that strong a dong. [Link]

languagehat.com » Edmond Edmont.

Tuesday 24 May 0:36:11 UTC 2016

Cara Giaimo writes in Atlas Obscura about a man I knew nothing about, as well as others in his line of work: Long before we had viral quizzes to gather our peculiarities, there was only [Edmond] Edmont—a linguistic assistant who spent the end of the 19th century bicycling around France, speaking to locals, and cataloguing their unique words and phrases. … [Link]

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