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 » Forcing Mandarin on Hong Kong

Saturday 27 January 22:51:23 UTC 2018

According to the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed by the Prime Ministers of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the United Kingdom (UK) governments on December 19, 1984, the way of life in Hong Kong would remain unchanged for a period of 50 years from the time of its handover to the PRC in 1997. This would have left Hong … [Link]

languagehat.com » Library of Discarded Books.

Saturday 27 January 14:02:09 UTC 2018

Thom Peart posts about a nice story out of Turkey: Turkish garbage collectors in the country’s capital city of Ankara have opened a public library that is full of books that were originally destined to be put into landfill. The workers began collecting discarded books and opened the new library in the Çankaya district of Ankara. News of the library … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Word pictures

Saturday 27 January 11:22:23 UTC 2018

Here some nice examples of pictures made from words that illustrates interesting idioms in a variety of languages. I really like the way they’re done. Idioms that get lost in translation, courtesy of Expedia.com [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » AOL Keyword

Saturday 27 January 8:30:00 UTC 2018

Used in a conversation to emphasize a point. "I don't think she knows yet." "AOL keyword: 'yet'." [Link]

Language Log » Global drop in GNP?

Saturday 27 January 4:22:57 UTC 2018

Is it my imagination, or has there been a drop in GNP (Gross National Peeving) across the Anglophone world? I'm not seeing nearly the volume of "Angry linguistic mobs with torches" that I (think I) did a decade ago. So the recently viral story about this sign on the door of the Continental bar makes me kind of nostalgic: East … [Link]

Archive