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 » Bus announcements in Okinawa
Travis Seifman noticed something interesting about the announcements on certain public bus lines in Okinawa: the pronunciation of Japanese / Okinawan place names in the English-language announcements is way off. Your browser does not support the audio element. Your browser does not support the audio element. Although the quality of these two recordings may not be optimal, hopefully you can … [Link]
Wordorigins.org » throw the book at
To throw the book at someone is to sentence them to the maximum penalty for a crime or offense. The term is an Americanism dating to the early years of the twentieth century. The “book” in question, however, is a bit uncertain. [Link]
Wordorigins.org » book, throw the b. at
See throw the book at. [Link]
Language Log » L2 shortcut?
In yesterday's Dilbert , Dogbert has a typically clever/evil idea: 
The strip's second row: 
But I'm not at all sure that his premise is valid. Different audiences have different moral and intellectual stereotypes for different accents, and so the audience impact is hard to predict, and is not necessarily positive. Update — as Dan Curtin points out in the comments, … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » Bless your heart
The most Southern 'fuck you' there is. Can be put at the end of a phrase to nullify any cruelty. That girl is the most fowl mouthed, idiotic, bitch there is, bless her heart.Oh you need to actually look this up? Bless your heart.
[Link]
languagehat.com » Gorky and Tolstoy.
Aaron Lake Smith has a good piece for Lapham’s Quarterly about Maxim Gorky, focusing on his “troubled friendship” with Leo Tolstoy; it makes me want to read his 1919 reminiscence about the older writer: His essay on Tolstoy is one of the most complex depictions of the love and hate that intertwine within a friendship that I have ever read … [Link]
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