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

Language Log » Uyghur language outlawed in schools of the Uyghur Autonomous Region

Tuesday 1 August 23:26:45 UTC 2017

I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw the Radio Free Asia headline: "China Bans Uyghur Language in Xinjiang Schools" (7/28/17) Some excerpts from the article: Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang region have issued a directive completely banning the use of the Uyghur language at all education levels up to and including secondary school, according to official sources, and … [Link]

Language Log » Literally bigger than the phone book

Tuesday 1 August 16:04:34 UTC 2017

The Edinburgh Festival season has begun. There are more than half a dozen independently run and temporally overlapping festivals, depending on what you want to count. But the biggest of all of them is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the entire world (I admitted in a Lingua Franca post to my love of the lowbrow humor … [Link]

Language Log » Scary good and scary bright

Tuesday 1 August 9:39:02 UTC 2017

Victor Mair published a post yesterday under the title "Google is scary good", and reader Philip Taylor commented: "Scary good" reads very oddly to me; would not "scarily" be more customary in such a context ? The answer is that there are quite a few adjectives (or, perhaps one should say, adverbs homophonous with their related adjectives) that occur as … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » OOTD

Tuesday 1 August 7:00:00 UTC 2017

"Outfit Of the Day"Usually used on fashion blogs, or other places where people show others that they are wearing or have worn. "Here is my OOTD."Same as "Here is my outfit of the day." [Link]

languagehat.com » Paths in the Rainforests.

Tuesday 1 August 3:05:23 UTC 2017

It’s been over four years since I bought Jan Vansina’s Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa ; I was excited about it at the time, but then (you know how it is) it sank to the bottom of the stack and I never got around to reading it. Well, now that I’m editing a … [Link]

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