Language Log: The "dance of the p's and b's": truth or noise?
Stanley Fish asks ("Mind Your P’s and B’s: The Digital Humanities and Interpretation", NYT 1/23/2011): [H]ow do the technologies wielded by digital humanities practitioners either facilitate the work...
View ArticleLanguage Log: Write new speeches, don't borrow from Hollywood
The Australian minister of transport and infrastructure, Anthony Albanese, recently plunged himself into an embarrassing situation that will probably stain his reputation permanently (see the Daily...
View ArticleLanguage Log: OMG moments induced by allegro forms in Pekingese
This afternoon I passed by a group of high school kids from China going down the street outside of Williams Hall, the office building in which I work. One of the girls said merrily, "Bur'ao", by...
View ArticleLanguage Log: DRESS-raising in New Zealand
For a recent story on the arrest of Kim Dotcom, The World's Lisa Mullins turned to Georgina Ball from Radio New Zealand ("Cyber Tycoon Wanted for Internet Piracy Arrested in New Zealand", 1/26/2012)....
View ArticleLanguage Log: "Two chairs"?
In the interview discussed in the previous post, there was one place where some combination of phonetic variation in vowels and cultural variation in measurement units left me puzzled. The context is...
View ArticleLanguage Log: Rage against the machine, vote for Newt!
"Sarah Palin talks Florida GOP battle", Justice with Judge Jeanine, Fox News, 1/29/2012: You gotta rage against the machine at this point in order to defend our republic and save what is- what is good...
View ArticleLanguage Log: Annals of airport Chinglish, part 3
Carley De Rosa spotted this sign in the Kunming airport on her way to Laos. Dumbfounded by the Chinglish, not least because what it called an "elevator" was actually an "escalator", on her way back...
View ArticleLanguage Log: GURT 2012: Measured Language
For half a century, the annual Georgetown University Round Table on Language and Linguistics has featured interesting presentations on a topical theme. GURT 2012, to be held 3/8/2012-3/11/2012, on...
View ArticleLanguage Log: Alyssa "talks backwards"
A currently viral video: There are several different things that "talking backwards" might mean. You might produce a vocalization BACKWARDS(X) which, when played backwards, would sound like X. That...
View ArticleLanguage Log: Another milestone
At some point around lunch time today, our filter nabbed its 2 millionth spam comment: Since we logged the our millionth spam comment at some point on 9/1/2011, 152 days ago, we've been averaging...
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