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 » Sports chants

Monday 5 February 18:54:17 UTC 2018

There was a big city-wide party last night here in Philadelphia, but the Philadelphia Orchestra, got on board back in early December: Since this is Language Log and not Out-of-Control Civic Exhilaration Log, I want to focus on the prosody of the Eagles chant at the end: Your browser does not support the audio element. It's basically four two-beat units: … [Link]

Language Log » Alexa disguises her name?

Monday 5 February 15:33:21 UTC 2018

"Alexa Loses Her Voice" won USA Today's Super Bowl Ad Meter: I believe that this was also the first Super Bowl ad to raise a technical question about speech technology. Brad Stone, "Here’s Why Alexa Won’t Light Up During Amazon Super Bowl Ad", Bloomberg 2/2/2018: Amazon.com Inc. is advertising its Alexa-powered speakers in the big game on Sunday. It’s an … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » unbenounced

Monday 5 February 8:30:00 UTC 2018

How fucktards try to spell unbeknownst. Unbenounced to us, he was retarded the whole time. [Link]

Language Log » Don't blame Google Translate

Monday 5 February 3:31:39 UTC 2018

Douglas Hofstadter has a critical article in the latest issue of The Atlantic (1/30/18): "The Shallowness of Google Translate: The program uses state-of-the-art AI techniques, but simple tests show that it's a long way from real understanding." (1/30/18). Hofstadter criticizes GT for not being as good as himself at translating from French, German, and Chinese into English. I will let … [Link]

languagehat.com » Aramaic in New Jersey.

Monday 5 February 1:33:18 UTC 2018

Matthew Petti writes for America about an interesting community: A strip mall 15 minutes down the highway from Manhattan is the last place I expected to hear the language spoken by Jesus Christ. But northern New Jersey is one of the places where Syriac Christians, driven from the Middle East by violence and persecution, have come to call home over … [Link]

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