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

Language Log » Trent Reznor Award nomination

Sunday 13 November 16:29:40 UTC 2016

It's been a while since we posted a nomination for the Trent Reznor Prize for Tricky Embedding — I believe that the most recent nomination was in April of 2012. But here's a worthy suggestion from Laura Bailey: .@LanguageLog is the 2nd sentence a contender for the Trent Reznor Prize For Tricky Centre Embedding? pic.twitter.com/tOwyqzCEpH — Laura Bailey (@linguistlaura) November … [Link]

Language Log » Asshat(t)ery

Sunday 13 November 12:10:06 UTC 2016

From Jenny Chu, on November 9: I am a long-time follower of Language Log but usually comment on the Chinese and Vietnamese related topics by Prof. Mair. Yet I thought you might be amused by the attached conversation. It shows some nice examples of the playfulness and creativity of the human language faculty, as well as some nicely ironic / … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Self-own

Sunday 13 November 8:30:00 UTC 2016

From the slang own: to own self. As soon as Bill pushed the button, a hundred-ton weight fell from the sky and hit him on the head. "Ha! Bill got self-owned!" said Joe. [Link]

Omniglot blog » Language quiz

Sunday 13 November 7:00:48 UTC 2016

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

Language Log » Love Love Rock

Sunday 13 November 5:52:13 UTC 2016

The Love Love Rock festival, a music event in Xindian, New Taipei City, uses an interesting version of the character aì 愛 ("love") for its branding. Certain elements of the character are duplicated (and some reversed) to convey the double 愛 (aìaì). So here we have still another polysyllabic character, with which we may compare those discussed in the following … [Link]

languagehat.com » Superseding “Supersede.”

Sunday 13 November 1:15:33 UTC 2016

Anne Curzan at Lingua Franca reports on a spelling challenge the graduate-student instructor for her introductory English linguistics course had given to students: Which irregular spellings are you willing to part with? One of the suggestions was supersede; Curzan is sold, and I find myself willing to accept the wildly popular (mis)spelling supercede. Sure, it’s historically unjustifiable (to supersede is, … [Link]

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