As everyone knows, today is International Pronouns Day. Why, you might ask, does such a day exist? There’s no International Adjectives Day, after all. Or International Verbs Day. What’s so special about pronouns? It’s all because English has these gendered… Read More ›
The Magician King is the sequel to The Magicians, which I reviewed on September 1. As the second book in Lev Grossman’s trilogy, it follows closely after book #1 and appropriately leaves the reader hanging, waiting for #3. Darker and more mature than The… Read More ›
Credit to Nigel Fabb via Arnold Zwicky for this photo of the Metropolitan Rage Warehouse in Cambridge, where you can store your rage and keep it safe from anyone’s ire:
I am not on Twitter. If I were, I would have to re-retweet this tweet, originally from Kory Stamper, already retweeted by Gretchen McCullogh: She’s a little less temperate than I am, but… yeah. And do read her book —… Read More ›
It has been nearly two years since I’ve seen Arrival, so why am I just now getting around to writing about it? I have no idea why, but it just happened that way. Anyway, I couldn’t resist this movie, partly (largely?) because… Read More ›
Note the subtle use of italics to express emphasis in the title. 😀 Why do people persist in referring to Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, and so forth as dialects rather than languages? Actually, there are a couple of good explanations — “good”… Read More ›
Just completed the second week of Weston High School’s June Academy, in which I taught a course on Egyptian Hieroglyphics. In the photo below you can see two posters that showcase some of the students’ work, including carefully drawn name… Read More ›
“Five languages in five days” is the name of the four-day course I have just finished teaching. Yes, you heard me: despite the name, it’s a four-day course. So which is it, five days or four? Let’s see what Lewis… Read More ›
Yet another linguistics podcast has come to my attention! It’s The Vocal Fries, subtitled “the podcast about linguistic discrimination.” This series, now four months old, is of course named for the phonological register commonly called “vocal fry,” but that’s only the starting point…. Read More ›
For dual reasons (appropriately enough) I have made myself a commitment to pursue several months of language lessons on Duolingo, which describes itself as “the free science-based language education platform that has organically become the most popular way to learn… Read More ›
