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 » Pronouns again

Wednesday 1 March 21:45:57 UTC 2017

Fred Vultee, "Pronouns: The Reunion Tour", HeadsUp The Blog, 3/1/2017: The Fabulous Pronouns are back on the road! Take it away, The Washington Examiner: President Trump referred to himself during his first speech to a joint session of Congress at a much lower rate than former President Barack Obama did in his first address in February 2009, roughly half as … [Link]

Omniglot blog » The white light of the world

Wednesday 1 March 17:11:45 UTC 2017

свет (svet) An interesting and useful Russian word I came across today is свет [svʲet], which means light, and also lights, lighting, day, radiance, power, electricity, world and (high) society. It comes from the Old East Slavic свѣтъ ‎(světŭ – light; world), from Proto-Slavic *světъ ‎(light; world), from the Proto-Balto-Slavic *śwaitas, from the Proto-Indo-European *ḱwoytos / *ḱweytos ‎(bright; shine), from *ḱwey-. Related … [Link]

Language Log » Annals of email porn filtering

Wednesday 1 March 16:32:30 UTC 2017

I have a German friend who lives amid farmland out east of Edinburgh, and keeps chickens as a hobby. When I visited recently, there was much excitement because one of a clutch of fertile eggs in a small incubator in the living room was beginning to hatch. A tiny beak appeared, and eventually a bedraggled baby bird struggled out and … [Link]

Language Log » Headline abuse of the month

Wednesday 1 March 12:20:34 UTC 2017

From this tweet: @thetimes : This headline could have been put rather better: pic.twitter.com/hjr9Km3rwc — James Turner QC (@JamesTurner37) March 1, 2017 Stan Carey, who sent it in, commented It could be a typo, but my guess is that it's a distant compound, as Arnold Zwicky calls them, like "canoe wife" and "shark widow". For an in-depth study of such … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » nametake

Wednesday 1 March 8:00:00 UTC 2017

The reverse of namesake; a person you are named after. The monk Martin Luther was the nametake of Dr. King. [Link]

Language Log » Buddhism and languages

Wednesday 1 March 4:55:05 UTC 2017

Whether you are familiar with Chinese characters or not, try to guess the meaning of the calligraphy on the front of this forthcoming book (the answer is at the very end of this post): If you are a serious Buddhologist, you end up having to study a lot of difficult languages. When I enrolled in a program of Buddhist Studies … [Link]

languagehat.com » The Story of Dakhani.

Wednesday 1 March 3:22:20 UTC 2017

A Tongue Untied: The Story of Dakhani is a film being made about “a vernacular form of Urdu spoken across the Deccan region”; as the website says: Parodied and poorly regarded for centuries, Dakhani’s glorious history and rich legacy has been largely ignored. This film takes a close look at the continuing tradition of mazihiya shayri, or humour-satire performance poetry. … [Link]

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