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 » Communication games

Saturday 8 July 22:51:31 UTC 2017

Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "You're saying that the responsibility for avoiding miscommunication lies entirely with the listener, not the speaker, which explains why you haven't been able to convince anyone to help you down from that wall." [Link]

languagehat.com » Pustoshi.

Saturday 8 July 19:55:55 UTC 2017

Immediately after the passage quoted from Kivelson in yesterday’s post comes an even more interesting one dealing with the term translated there as “uninhabited field.” In my innocence, I thought that was relatively straightforward, but no: The vast majority of properties mentioned in seventeenth-century sources were pustoshi, uninhabited but plowed, or formerly plowed and settled, plots. Their evocative name, pustosh’, … [Link]

Language Log » Becoming a modifier

Saturday 8 July 12:35:31 UTC 2017

In an update to his post "Becoming an adjective", Geoff Pullum notes that the existence of name-derived adjectives like Shakespearean and Kafkaesque might have been what "Jane Jacobs … is an adjective" was meant to mean. But he doesn't also note that there are at least two semantic domains where it's long been common to use people's names as modifiers: … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Living rent free

Saturday 8 July 8:00:00 UTC 2017

When you are always thinking about someone. Girl you living rent free in my head. [Link]

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