“Tell it to Kim and I.” That’s grammatically correct, right? Not to those of us who were traditionally trained: older people like me and younger people who were indoctrinated by people like me. But apparently it’s correct now. And not… Read More ›
Linguistics
Forensics? Forensic linguistics?
What does the word “forensic” mean to you? And what on earth could forensic linguistics possibly be? Let’s see what Mr. Google says about “forensic”: relating to or denoting the application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of… Read More ›
BuffySpeak
Who remembers Buffy? Hands up so I can see them! OK. You can put them down now. If you remember Buffy, you probably also remember some of the quirky language used in that show. Or maybe it was too long… Read More ›
Language families: amazing maps!
What a diversity of languages we have! With 7000 languages spread out over the world in a patchwork quilt, we can fuse linguistics and maps into a single combined representation. That’s what Annemarie Verkerk’s article “Language Family Maps” is all… Read More ›
Is that even a word? Is it in the dictionary?
“That isn’t a word: it isn’t in the dictionary!” is heard all too frequently. There are two problems with statements like this: There is no such thing as THE dictionary; there are many different dictionaries, and no two lists of… Read More ›
Translation and culture
Translation is impossible. Traduttore, traditore. That’s the lovely word pairing in Italian — roughly “a translator is a traitor”, where there’s only a small vowel change and a doubled consonant distinguishing the two words. A recent article by Matthew Reynolds explored… Read More ›
Blue, green, and grue
Color names are a mystery. At least to me. Take a look at the color chips in the image. If we limit ourselves to common English color names (excluding, that is, the myriad of names used by both types of… Read More ›
Trump’s language — and Obama’s
What do you think about Donald Trump’s use of language? A lot of people criticize it. On the other side there were even people who criticized Obama’s language, so where does the truth lie? Frances Brown, who worked for the… Read More ›
Linguistics in MetroWest
For many years I inserted linguistic lagniappes into my honors geometry classes at Weston — typically for 15–20 minutes, twice a month. You may wonder what the connection between linguistics and geometry might be — but if you view honors geometry as… Read More ›
Do we need to upgrade the Constitution? Plus a parsing problem…
According to my iPhone (see screen shot below), we can do so for only $1.99! Any suggestions? Also, we have this quotation from a Washington Post article: The whistleblower is not white,” one 4chan commenter asserted Thursday, probably misreading a… Read More ›
Greek Script Hacking
Four weeks ago I reviewed two of the Script Hacking books: Korean and Arabic. Now I turn to a script that I actually know — one that I know thoroughly, in fact: I studied Greek for six years, starting in… Read More ›
Batman uses linguistics! Who’d’a thunk it?
Yes, it’s a couple of days late for Batman Day — but that’s OK. I was astonished to learn that there are not just one but two episodes of School of Batman in which linguistics plays a major role. First… Read More ›
Looking back from the 23rd Century
It’s too had that the Times editors had to write “The opinion piece below is a work of fiction,” but I guess nobody recognizes satire anymore. If they had managed to date it “September 23, 2021,” I don’t suppose anyone… Read More ›
Jiffy? Centijiffy? Decijiffy?
“I’ll be with you in a jiffy.” How long is a jiffy? What about a centijiffy? Before we get to the urgent question of how long a jiffy is, I want to comment on a surprising error (or is it… Read More ›
People speak [insert language name here] really quickly, don’t they?
We’ve all had the experience of listening to someone speak an unfamiliar language and perceiving their speech as being particularly rapid. It seems like a stereotype — depending on the language, that is — so we’re naturally skeptical. Maybe it’s… Read More ›
The answers you’ve been waiting for!
Here are answers to the puzzle from a few days ago, the one that asked you to identify 13 different languages: 1. French 2. Italian 3. Spanish 4. Portuguese 5. Ladino 6. Galician 7. Aragonese 8. Catalan 9. Occitan 10…. Read More ›
Easier (perhaps?) languages to identify
A sentence is shown below in 13 different languages, which are obviously related but how many can you identify? Some of them are going to be easier than the languages on the Mars bar the other day. I can give a… Read More ›
Literally
Kory Stamper’s typically excellent article in The Cut is literally the best thing ever. What did you think of that sentence? Did the figurative/emphatic use of literally bug you? If so — or even if not — you should read “The 300-Year… Read More ›
Mars (the candy bar, not the planet)
The image below shows the trilingual wrapper of a candy bar abandoned by a film crew that had been shooting in South Boston near Dorchester. Can you figure out what the three languages are? Hint #1: I can’t speak any… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 