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

Language Log » Bora

Monday 30 May 11:10:13 UTC 2016

Last Thursday, during LREC 2016, 16 participants from ELRA and LDC had a festive dinner at a restaurant named Na Burji. On the drive from Portorož, we had a discussion about what the restaurant's name means — our first guess, stimulated by the extreme switchbacks we traversed as the road climbed steeply from the coastal plain towards Nova Vas nad Dragonjo, … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » dickini

Monday 30 May 7:00:00 UTC 2016

Synonymous with "man thong". A combination of "dick" and "bikini". Cindy: Wow, Steve does not have enough package to be rocking that dickini. Not a good move. [Link]

Language Log » Why "zebra"?

Monday 30 May 0:51:47 UTC 2016

So asked Michael Rank in the comments section to this post: "Triple topolectal reprimand" (5/29/16) That's a very good question. It's a common expression among Wuhan speakers, a pet phrase for men and women alike, almost as though it were a sort of mantra or dharani. If you ask them what it means, they will probably tell you that they … [Link]

languagehat.com » On the Trail of Nabokov.

Monday 30 May 0:07:37 UTC 2016

Landon Jones’s NY Times article “On the Trail of Nabokov in the American West” is in the travel section, and it is in fact much more about travel than literature, but hey, it’s Nabokov, and I can’t resist passing it along. It’s got evocative photos and some piquant bits about Vlad and Vera: And what would Nabokov have made of … [Link]

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