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 » How Linguists Would Talk to E.T.

Sunday 2 October 21:44:59 UTC 2016

Greg Uyeno has a CBS News story on the unusual (for mainstream media) topic of communication with aliens, which is of interest to someone like me who grew up immersed in sf and interested in language. The hook is the forthcoming sf movie Arrival (which I am eager to see), based on an excellent story by Ted Chiang (which is … [Link]

Language Log » Code

Sunday 2 October 14:09:52 UTC 2016

Alex Kantrowitz, "Racist Social Media users Have A New Code To Avoid Censorship", BuzzFeed 10/1/2016: Racist online communities have developed a new code for racial, homophobic and bigoted slurs in an attempt avoid censorship. The code, using terms like Google, Skittle, and Yahoo as substitutes for offensive words describing blacks, Muslims and Mexicans, appears to be in use by various … [Link]

Language Log » NOUN VERBing

Sunday 2 October 12:49:38 UTC 2016

Good morning. Your Republican nominee has been up all night rage-tweeting. pic.twitter.com/mL1ovBY1bm — pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) September 30, 2016 I'll leave the psychology and politics of rage-tweeting to others — my concern is its morphology. English is happy to form NOUN VERBing combinations where the noun is the logical object of the verb: table thumping, slogan shouting, bird watching, garbage collecting, … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Language quiz

Sunday 2 October 12:11:34 UTC 2016

Here’s a recording in a mystery language. Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken? [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Selective Dickism

Sunday 2 October 7:09:43 UTC 2016

When someone is only a dick to certain people Logan: Brad why does it seem like you're only a dick to meBrad: Sorry Logan, I have Selective Dickism [Link]

languagehat.com » Scrabble yn Gymraeg.

Sunday 2 October 0:02:35 UTC 2016

Ingi Birchell Hughes lives in a Welsh village and is learning Welsh, and she didn’t like a piece in the Grauniad: Last week the Guardian published an odd mean little article about how 5 boxes of Scrabble yn Gymraeg had been lingering unsold on a dusty shelf in Waterstones in Carmarthen. It was a master class in invalidation — implying, … [Link]

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