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

languagehat.com » Prince Serebryany.

Sunday 22 October 21:43:23 UTC 2017

I’ve finished Aleksey K. Tolstoy’s historical novel Князь Серебряный [Prince Serebryany] (see this comment), and, well, it’s a great Boy’s Own adventure story if that’s the sort of thing you like. Except that it’s Russian, so if the protagonists are lucky they die in battle and if they’re not they get tortured to death in Red Square. Brief summary: Prince … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Language quiz

Sunday 22 October 12:20:36 UTC 2017

Language quiz image Here’s a recording in a mystery language. Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken? [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » DeVostated

Sunday 22 October 7:30:00 UTC 2017

The feeling one has when they go to report a sexual assault to learn section seven has been annulled under Betsy DeVos and the Trump Reich. girl: I went to the counselor to talk about what happened this weekend, with those men.Friend: what happened?Girl: nothing, they told me there was nothing I could do, because the proper procedures have been … [Link]

languagehat.com » Dolerite and Diabase.

Sunday 22 October 0:07:49 UTC 2017

I just ran across the word dolerite in the excellent science fiction novel Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (thanks, Songdog!), and of course I looked it up and found that it was sort of synonymous with diabase, both meaning ‘a dark, fine-grained igneous rock’ (you can see the gory details at the Wikipedia article: “Diabase is the preferred name in … [Link]

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