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 » Peripatetic false friends

Thursday 2 June 16:31:44 UTC 2016

The English word peripatetic means “tending to walk about; constantly travelling; itinerant; nomadic”. It is also related to Aristotle, his philosophy, and the school of thought he founded. A peripatetic teacher is one who teaches in a number of different schools, and it’s common, at least in the UK, for music teachers and sometimes language teachers, to be peripatetic. It … [Link]

languagehat.com » On Honesty in Argument.

Thursday 2 June 13:20:26 UTC 2016

Ryan Ruby has a 3 Quarks Daily piece called The Prescriptivist’s Progress that begins as follows: This month, two minor controversies revived the specter of the “language wars” and reintroduced the literary internet to the distinction between prescriptivism and descriptivism. One began when Han Kang’s novel The Vegetarian won the Man Booker Prize and readers took to their search engines … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » wash and wank

Thursday 2 June 7:00:00 UTC 2016

To pleasure yourself in the shower. It's convenient because it kills two birds with one stone, the buckling down and the clean up. Friend: Hey you wanna go to taco bell? Me: Sorry, I gotta do the ol' wash and wank Friend: Can I join? Me: Yee [Link]

Language Log » Coulter: "Hispanics" and "Mandarins" at a Trump rally

Thursday 2 June 2:27:32 UTC 2016

From an anonymous correspondent: Here’s an article about how Ann Coulter described the audience at a Trump rally as "a melting pot full of 'Hispanics' and 'Mandarins.’” (Her actual words seem to be, “They have Mandarins in the audience. They have Hispanics in the audience.”) "Ann Coulter brags about the large number of 'Mandarins' at California pro-Trump rally" (shanghaiist, 6/1/16) … [Link]

languagehat.com » A’ghailleann.

Thursday 2 June 0:43:06 UTC 2016

Iona Sharma’s “A’ghailleann”: On Language-Learning and the Decolonisation of the Mind is an essay about her attempt to learn Scottish Gaelic after failure to relearn what should in theory be her mother tongue, Hindi; it’s the kind of story I always find moving and inspiring: Here are the things you need to know first. I am thirty years old. I … [Link]

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