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 » Siri can you hear me?

Monday 22 May 16:37:05 UTC 2017

Wired.com has some perfect linguaphile clickbait: “Watch People With Accents Confuse the Hell Out of AI Assistants.” By “accents” they mean, non-American ones (e.g., Irish English). The AI Assistants were Siri, Amazon Echo, and Google Home. I’m curious about how well the voice recognition systems in these devices work with varieties of spoken English, so I clicked. Sucker! Can’t tell … [Link]

Language Log » Study the linguistics of Game of Thrones

Monday 22 May 13:17:24 UTC 2017

At the instant of posting this, there are only 18 places remaining out of the 40 maximum in Linguistics 183 001, David Peterson’s summer session course at UC Berkeley on “The Linguistics of Game of Thrones and the Art of Language Invention.” 3 to 5 p.m., Mon/Tue/Wed/Thu, May 22 to June 30. It’s not a ‘Structure of Dothraki’ course; it’s … [Link]

Language Log » -ist vs. -ic in Riyadh

Monday 22 May 12:57:46 UTC 2017

During last year’s presidential campaign, Donald Trump was repeatedly insistent that everyone should use the term “radical Islamic terrorism”. For example, his reaction to the Orlando massacre, from Inside Edition 7/13/2016: Your browser does not support the audio element. Announcer: Trump spoke out about the massacre today, saying the president is afraid to call it an act of Islamic terrorism. … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » face jerking

Monday 22 May 7:00:00 UTC 2017

the act of being on facebook all of the time, and getting no satisfaction out of it. my boyfriend spends all of his time looking a posts on facebook, he is just face jerking. [Link]

Language Log » Schrödinger’s pundit

Monday 22 May 0:55:30 UTC 2017

Today’s SMBC: Mouseover title: “On second thought, let’s just leave them in the box.” The aftercomic: [Link]

languagehat.com » The Ancient Bookshelf.

Monday 22 May 0:21:15 UTC 2017

I’ve discovered another interesting blog, The Ancient Bookshelf, whose motto (with which I cannot disagree) is “Old stuff is exciting!” It’s run by James Hamrick, and lately he seems to be concentrating on Ge’ez (classical Ethiopic), a language that’s always intrigued me but that I’ll probably never do anything about. He has a brief introduction to it here, and here … [Link]

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