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
Omniglot blog » The Aesthetic of Umlessness
The title of this post comes from a book by Michael Erard that I’m currently reading: Um. . .: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean. It’s an interesting book that discusses how we all tend to um and er (or uh) in speech, and get words mixed up, correct ourselves, and make various other verbal blunders. In … [Link]
Language Log » Strong /t/
Peter Serafinowicz has created and uploaded to YouTube several dozen videos in the “Sassy Trump” series, in which he revoices Donald Trump’s words in a stereotypically gay manner. One example: Since the originals are of course also available, this offers an interesting opportunity to investigate (one person’s idea of) gay speech stereotypes in a quasi-“matched guise” format: I don’t have … [Link]
Wordorigins.org » zeppelin
This word for a dirigible airship comes, of course, from the name of Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who designed such airships. Ironically, the word appears in English before it does in German. On 14 February 1896 the Washington Post referred to Zeppelin’s design for such a craft as a Zeppelin air ship, but the German Luftschiff Zeppelin doesn’t appear until 1904. … [Link]
Wordorigins.org » dirigible
Today, the word dirigible is almost always used as a noun, referring to a zeppelin-type airship, and I always had it in my head that the word was related to rigid, a reference to the rigid frame of such an aircraft. But that is not the case. The word began life as an adjective meaning capable of being directed or … [Link]
Wordorigins.org » airship
Today, the word airship refers to a dirigible aircraft, a flying machine with a rigid frame that is buoyed by gas bags and powered by engines, but it wasn’t always that specific. Originally, airship referred to any type of balloon or aircraft, and it wasn’t until 1900 and the advent of Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s flying machines that the word started … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » uggo
n. uh-goh, uh-gohs One who is ugly; offensive to the eye; repulsive I hate uggos.
[Link]
Language Log » The sanitization of a sensual Chinese poem
From Michael Pratt, a former professor of Spanish, who relocated to Shenzhen to learn more about Chinese poetry, which was his chief motivation for moving to China: At times, when I discuss Tang shi (“Tang poetry”) with Chinese acquaintances, I am struck by their seeming dogmatism about the range of possible interpretations. For example, in a recent conversation about the … [Link]
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