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 » Last gasp of lead type
Chen Cheng-wei and staff writer Elizabeth Hsu, “Taiwan’s last lead-character mold maker works to preserve the past” (Focus Taiwan, 5/1/17): Rixing Type Foundry is home to the last remaining collection of traditional Chinese movable type character molds in the world. It possesses 120,000 molds of different characters in a wide range of sizes and three different typefaces — kaiti (楷體) … [Link]
Omniglot blog » Heartsease
Heartsease, or heart’s-ease, is one of the names for the pansy (see photo), both garden and wild varieties. This name apparently comes from St. Euphrasia, whose name means ‘cheerfulness of mind’ in Greek. Other names for the garden pansy, or Viola tricolor hortensis / Viola x wittrockiana, include: viola, violet, love in idleness, or kiss-me-quick. The name pansy comes from … [Link]
Language Log » Writing moxibustion is a bust
[This is a guest post by David Moser] I took a group of my students, who are studying the Chinese medical system, to a yǎngshēngguǎn 养生馆 [VHM: “health center / club” — centered on TCM = Traditional Chinese Medicine], which are very common in Beijing. I wanted them to see and experience firsthand the kinds of informal “well being” treatments … [Link]
Language Log » Everything, everything
At a Semantics Workshop in the Rutgers Philosophy Department last weekend, my job was to comment on an excellent paper by Alex Lascarides & Julian Schlöder, “Understanding Focus: Tune, Placement, and Coherence“. Here’s the opening section of my presentation: We modulate our linguistic performances in many ways, expressing our state of mind and our attitudes towards the interaction and towards … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » fye
another word for tight "That pizza looks Fye"
[Link]
Language Log » Extreme measures
Robin Andrews, “Female Dragonflies Fake Their Deaths To Avoid Annoying Males“, IFL Science 4/28/2017: So, you’re in a bar, or on a bus, or grabbing a coffee, something like that – and that guy that kept grinning at you like a deranged werewolf decides to saunter on over, say hello, and strike up a highly unwanted flirtatious conversation. No matter … [Link]
Language Log » Veggies for cats and dogs
This video was passed on by Tim Leonard, who remarks, “real-time video translation at its best”: The Japanese in the background reads: inu / neko no taberu nama yasai 犬・猫の食べる生野菜 (“raw vegetables / greens for dogs and cats to eat”) *nama 生 (“raw) > shinsen 新鮮 (“fresh”) You can see for yourself what the English translation is. [Thanks to Nathan … [Link]
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