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

Wordorigins.org » The Oxford Comma and the Law

Friday 17 March 17:24:00 UTC 2017

The legal dispute between the Oakhurst Dairy and its drivers has been settled. As widely reported in the media, the dispute hinged on the use, or omission, of the Oxford comma. But the media, or at least the New York Times, is still getting it wrong. The ambiguity in the law was never just about the Oxford comma. The court … [Link]

Language Log » Pinyin as subversive subtext

Friday 17 March 15:53:42 UTC 2017

B JS sent in this interesting example of using Pinyin ("spelling") as a subtext for notional meaning rendered in characters from Baidu tieba [Post Bar] (though sometimes when I look for this post it seems to get scrubbed by the censors): Here's the overt text: Zhè shì guójì zhǔyì de jīngshén, zhè shì gòngchǎn zhǔyì de jīngshén, měi yīgè gòngchǎndǎng … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Shamrock'd

Friday 17 March 7:00:00 UTC 2017

(Noun) Getting drunk on St. Patrick's Day Bro I got so Shamrock'd last night at this girls St. Patty's party. [Link]

languagehat.com » Two Words.

Friday 17 March 1:32:44 UTC 2017

1) In a text I was editing there was a reference to “rhopalic verse.” Having no idea what “rhopalic” meant, I looked it up and discovered it meant “having each succeeding unit in a prosodic series larger or longer than the preceding one” (e.g., each line in a poem being a syllable longer than the preceding line). So far, so … [Link]

Language Log » Two-child policy

Friday 17 March 0:24:50 UTC 2017

Under the one-child policy, which was in effect in China from 1979 till just recently, the following exhortation posted on the wall of a village house in China would have been unthinkable: So unthinkable would such a poster have been during the last three decades and more that I scarcely could believe my eyes when I saw it. Although I … [Link]

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