John Gordon Ross

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

Wordorigins.org » 5 Ways to a Faster PhD

Thursday 27 July 21:44:33 UTC 2017

This article has absolutely nothing to do with etymology or language (except in the tangential way that it is about professional studies in the humanities), but it’s something I wrote about the problem of how long it takes to complete a PhD in the humanities. It’s probably not of much interest to those outside academia. And sorry about the click-baity … [Link]

Language Log » Han

Thursday 27 July 17:30:11 UTC 2017

Pearls before Swine for 7/23/2017: A couple of Generation Z language consultants confirm the accuracy of the translations. Or as one of them put it, "Haha right". [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » Pissgate

Thursday 27 July 7:30:00 UTC 2017

The scandal in which there may or may not be a tape of the President getting pissed on by Russian prostitutes I cant believe the President is caught up in this pissgate [Link]

Language Log » Chinese Synesthesia

Thursday 27 July 2:49:32 UTC 2017

Xiaoyan (Coco) Li, a native Chinese speaker with synesthesia (self identified, never formally tested), happened to come across this Language Log post: "Synesthesia and Chinese characters" (3/9/17) She wrote to me saying that she experiences some of what Leo Fransella (quoted in the earlier post) referred to as "'non-trivial' Chinese synaesthesia". For him "trivial" Chinese synesthesia is associated with or … [Link]

languagehat.com » The Hamburg Score.

Thursday 27 July 2:10:13 UTC 2017

The mail brought an Amazon package containing an item I only recently added to my wishlist (because it’s only just been published), Shushan Avagyan’s translation of Viktor Shklovsky’s Гамбургский счет, The Hamburg Score (with a very touching note from the generous reader who ordered it for me — thanks from the bottom of my heart, Clay). I have been unreasonably … [Link]

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