I have to share this cartoon (by Arnold Zwicky), but I’m not going to explain it:
Linguistics
Lingo: Around Europe in sixty languages
An informal and totally unscientific poll tells me that most people don’t realize that there are 60 languages in Europe; they are certainly surprised to hear that actually there are considerably more than 60. Dutch linguist Gaston Dorren has written a slightly flawed… Read More ›
Old medicine
As you can see, the cover page of this book looks old enough — 151 years old, to be precise. But you’ll notice that the title refers to “Early England” and the sub-sub-title refers to “before the Norman conquest,” so… Read More ›
A multilingual bookmark
I’ll have to give this as a puzzle to my incoming freshmen in September. You know how libraries give out free bookmarks as a service to their customers? (I’m sure it’s mostly just a way to discourage evil practices like… Read More ›
Spacing after periods
Three decades ago, when I was doing some contract work for a software company that shall go nameless, a co-worker suggested an optional plug-in for their flagship product. For a mere $5000.00, a customer could install a module that would… Read More ›
Which language do they speak in Canada?
There’s something wrong with the question in the title of this piece, isn’t there? I had asked some students “What language do Canadians speak?” Some of them said English, a few said French, some said both English and French. One said… Read More ›
Making a Point: The Persnickety Story of English Punctuation
If you use commas and periods, this book is for you. If you use semicolons and dashes; this book is still for you. And even if you use colons, hyphens, parentheses, and the dreaded apostrophes, this book is still for you. So, I… Read More ›
The Art of Language Invention
OK, let’s get a couple of things out of the way before we discuss this book: First of all, it is not a book for the general public. Despite its title, The Art of Language Invention is not a popularization. Yes, it looks like an ordinary trade… Read More ›
Henrietta’s Table…and a mysterious sign
Excellent dinner last night with Barbara, Ellen, Aviva, and Jake at Henrietta’s Table: I had smoked pastrami salmon, duck, broccoli, strawberry cream pie… Of course I had them remove the calories first. Haven’t had duck in months, so it was… Read More ›
#JeSuisCirconflexe
Surprisingly (perhaps), The Economist is a great source for articles about linguistics. When an article is also about world politics, however, no one is surprised. Yesterday’s issue included a piece with the odd title of “Je suis circonflexe”; what could that possibly be… Read More ›
