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 » The unreasonable hilarity of recurrent neural networks
If you haven’t done so already, read Andrej Karpathy, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Recurrent Neural Networks“. And then Janelle Shane, “New paint colors invented by neural network“. The punch line: 
[Link]
Language Log » Trends in presidential pitch II
In Trends in presidential pitch (5/19/2017), I observed that the median fundamental frequency (= “pitch”) of President Trump’s weekly addresses has increased steadily since January, by about 30%. As a point of comparison, I did the same calculation for President Obama’s first few months of weekly addresses, from 1/24/2009 to 5/23/2009, in comparison to Trump’s weekly addresses from 1/28/2017 to … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » Accidental Anal
When two or more men are engaged in some sort of testosterone-based activity (I.E. wrestling, football, rugby, etc…) and there is incidental penis to anus penetration. The term "accidental anal" refers to that occurrence. "Matt and Luke were playing a heated, but quality game of chess that ended in accidental anal.""I just wanted to put a dollar in the homeless … [Link]
Omniglot blog » Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language. Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken? [Link]
languagehat.com » Pisemsky’s Bitter Fate.
After reading minor works by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, I’ve read a major one by Pisemsky, and oh what a difference! The first two were still trying to figure out where they were going; Pisemsky was at the top of his game, and created one of the masterpieces of Russian drama. Горькая судьбина, translated as A Bitter Fate in 1933 by … [Link]
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