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 » 950 Years Ago On This Date…
Her forðferde Eaduuard king, ך Harold eorl feng to ðam rice ך heold hit XL wucena ך ænne dæg, ך her com Willelm ך gewann Ængla land. —The Parker Chronicle (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS. 173) (In this year King Edward died, and the nobleman Harold succeeded to the kingdom and held it forty weeks and a day, and in … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » robocall
A prerecorded call that is sent to hundreds or thousands of telephone numbers. An automatic dialing computer goes through a targeted list of phone numbers. Or: an individual call received. political consultant says… We need to record a celebrity robocall, provision it, and hit our base at least ten weeks before early voting. voter says… Damn, I came home to … [Link]
Language Log » The reality of censorship in the PRC
When we published the ABC Chinese-English Dictionary from Hawaii in 1996, the original American edition had this definition for Lin Biao: "veteran Communist military leader; Mao Zedong's designated successor until his mysterious death". Imagine our surprise when we discovered in the licensed edition of the dictionary from Shanghai the following definition: "veteran Communist military leader; ringleader of counterrevolutionary group (during … [Link]
languagehat.com » Fiction Versus Nonfiction.
Richard Lea has a piece for the Guardian exploring how different cultures deal with a distinction that seems natural to the English-speaking world: […] But according to the writer Aleksandar Hemon, this strange chasm doesn’t even exist in the language of his birth. In Bosnian, says Hemon, “there are no words for fiction and nonfiction, or the distinction thereof”. “This … [Link]
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