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 » Reading the Unreadable.
Sarah Laskow writes for Atlas Obscura about a woman with an unusual specialty: On any given day, from her home on the Isle of Man, Linda Watson might be reading a handwritten letter from one Confederate soldier to another, or a list of convicts transported to Australia. Or perhaps she is reading a will, a brief from a long-forgotten legal … [Link]
Wordorigins.org » Swearing In Tarantino Movies
Who says linguistics is dull? Stephen Black is a British data scientist who has done yeoman’s work creating a tool for analyzing profanity in Tarantino’s movies. He’s also done an online concordance and tools for the King James Bible. [Discuss this post] [Link]
Language Log » Excessive quadrisyllabicism
Many readers of Language Log will remember the visit of China's former internet censor-in-chief, Lu Wei, to the headquarters of Facebook, Apple, and Amazon in late 2014. Those were his glory days, but now his star has fallen in a most spectacular fashion: "Former Cybersecurity Head Who Sought ‘Personal Fame’ Expelled From Party", by Wu Gang (Caixin [2/13/18]) "China’s ‘tyrannical’ … [Link]
Language Log » o ai aaa oa ueui
As ktschwarz pointed out in the comments on yesterday's post "Easy going crazy", Google Translate is disposed to recognize text consisting only of vowels and spaces as Hawaiian, and to hallucinate a coherent if sometimes chilling translation into English. In order to exercise this option more fully, I wrote and tested a simple R script to generate random messages of … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » Hair Furor
Reference to the turbulent Donald Trump and his hair based on "Der Fuehrer," AKA Adolf Hitler. A term of mockery aimed at Trump and his disorderly, chaotic and increasingly unhinged administration. Hair Furor DonnyJohn Trumpolini thinks giving SNAP recipients dried, canned and other "shelf stable" food is better than the current setup that allows them to go the store buy … [Link]
Language Log » An overnegation that isn't hard to miss
Headline from the Los Angeles Times: "South Korea's obsession with speedskating isn't hard to miss." 
Spotted by Alex Boisvert, who tweeted: "This headline has me oddly perplexed. Like … is it easy to miss? I've been thinking about this way too long." That's the thing with overnegations. They're oddly perplexing, and surprisingly easy to miss. It's something we've been documenting … [Link]
Talk Wordy to Me » Contemplation in the Haymarker
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Language Log » Bilingual, biscriptal sign in Virginia
Sticker at a gas station near the Richmond airport, courtesy of Jonathan Smith: 
You can read the English for yourself. The Japanese katakana read: fakkutoranpu ファックトランプ. Hint for the first part in Roman letters: cf. the name of the southern hip-hop group, C-Nile. Hint for the second part in katakana: katakana constitute that component of the Japanese writing system that, … [Link]
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