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

Wordorigins.org » Spelling Reform

Friday 22 July 21:34:00 UTC 2016

Anatoly Liberman is one of the leading etymologists out there, author of Word Origins and How We Know Them and the Analytical Dictionary of English Etymology. I did not know until recently, however, that he is also an advocate of English spelling reform. Linguist John McWhorter recently interviewed him regarding that subject for Slate’s Lexicon Valley podcast. Now there is … [Link]

Language Log » Writing Shanghainese, part 2

Friday 22 July 19:39:26 UTC 2016

No one in this Douban thread (so far) can identify the script in the image below: At first, I was going to post this as "Unknown script", with these thoughts: I'm inclined to think that it's not a hoax. Too many regular recurrences. Looks like a phonetic script. And it's gotta be East Asian because of the orientation, format, overall … [Link]

Language Log » On beyond Preserved Killick

Friday 22 July 18:18:20 UTC 2016

Back in 2003, I wrote about "Linking 'which' in Patrick O'Brian"; now Colin Morris has an interesting blog post about recent extensions, "Conjunctive 'which' — a discourse marker on the rise?", 7/22/2016. [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » trumpster fire

Friday 22 July 7:30:00 UTC 2016

When a rabid racist rant is fueled by a shitstorm of word salad. "That speech smells like Trumpster Fire!" [Link]

Language Log » Heavy traffic jam

Friday 22 July 2:22:28 UTC 2016

An anonymous correspondent sent in this photograph of a fake vehicle license plate in the window of a truck parked in an industrial area in the New Territories, Hong Kong that he took a couple of years ago: MSM: sāi dào bǔ jiē / Cant. sak1 dou3 buk1 gaai1 塞到卜街 For the moment, I will not attempt to translate the … [Link]

languagehat.com » The World in Words: Ainu.

Friday 22 July 0:56:14 UTC 2016

The World in Words podcast recently featured Patrick Cox investigating the Ainu language, with the help of Russian linguist Anna Bugaeva and others. At this link you can click on the audio and read a description of the various sections (“2:37 Anna Bugaeva knew from an early age she’d be a linguist”). If you like listening to knowledgeable linguists talking … [Link]

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