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

languagehat.com » Green’s Dictionary of Slang Online.

Wednesday 12 October 17:49:34 UTC 2016

John Cowan writes in a new comment to this 2010 thread: The Internet works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform, and some news is good news. After They Who Shall Not Be Named reneged on their promise to make GDoS searchable with a “We won’t do it: sue us if you dare”, Green was left with the digital database … [Link]

Language Log » "People's Re-fu*king of Chee-na"

Wednesday 12 October 16:49:21 UTC 2016

The following video was posted to YouTube on 10/11/16: The speaker is Yau Wai-ching, a newly elected member of Hong Kong's Legco (Legislative Council). We have already met Ms. Yau in this post: "A Sanskrit tattoo in Hong Kong" (10/4/16) While taking the oath of office, Yao repeatedly refers to the PRC as the "People's Re-fu*king of Chee-na". When asked … [Link]

Language Log » Green's Dictionary of Slang goes online

Wednesday 12 October 16:23:31 UTC 2016

Today, Green's Dictionary of Slang (GDoS for short) launches its online version. This is excellent news, coming more than five years after Jonathon Green published the print edition of his exhaustive three-volume reference work. As I wrote in the New York Times Book Review at the time, It's a never-ending challenge to keep up with the latest developments in the … [Link]

Language Log » Uh

Wednesday 12 October 14:29:24 UTC 2016

An interesting example of meaningful uh: As an athlete, I've been in locker rooms my entire adult life and uh, that's not locker room talk. — Sean Doolittle (@whatwouldDOOdo) October 10, 2016 The effect seems different from um, in a subtle way. A dozen years ago, I observed that ("And uh — and then what?", 1/5/2004): There has been a … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » he need some milk

Wednesday 12 October 7:25:46 UTC 2016

Having a violent accident so bad, it's obvious from afar that all of your bones are broken Once Kendall had hit the ground from his faulty parachute jump, it was obvious, he need some milk. [Link]

languagehat.com » Brothers, Buddies, and Bros.

Wednesday 12 October 0:19:42 UTC 2016

A good OUPBlog post by Katherine Connor Martin from a few months back describes the history of derivatives of the word brother: The English lexicon expands in innumerable ways. For instance, new words can be borrowed from other languages (café), arise through imitation of a sound (like oink or boom), and be formed from existing English words by combining two … [Link]

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