Apparently I’m late jumping on the bandwagon. Everywhere I look, someone else is trying out ChatGPT and commenting on it. This app is supposed to respond like a real human being, given any particular prompt you may type. So I… Read More ›
Linguistics
Your lingquiz for the season
You have been selected to take this language/linguistics quiz written by an American-British linguist. No fair asking Dr. Google or anyone else for help! Hints will be posted on Sunday, answers on Tuesday.
Did Hemingway write in short sentences? You probably think so. But you’re wrong! Science wins again.
You can believe actual data. We’ll call that Door #1. Or you can believe your general “impression.” We’ll call that Door #2. Or you can believe what other people tell you—the “common knowledge” that everyone “knows.” We’ll call that Door… Read More ›
The solution to that Estonian puzzle
And here is the full solution to the puzzle about telling time in Estonian. First the answers, in case you want to check your answers before following the link to the full solution: Challenge 1a. 9:25b. 11:45c. 2:30d. 3:15e. 6:35… Read More ›
How to tell time (in Estonian, of course)
Alex Bellos, on Atlas Obscura, has written a fine linguistics/math puzzle about telling time in Estonian. No knowledge of Estonian is required (in fact, it would spoil the puzzle), nor is any advanced knowledge of math or linguistics expected. Here… Read More ›
Ukraine: Its intertwined history and linguistics
A great article in The Spectator teaches us the history of language in Ukraine in the context of the rest of the history of the country. Author Norman Davies is remarkably thorough and thankfully straightforward, teaching us a lot in… Read More ›
The plural of “you” is…“y’all”? “youse”? “yinz”? “you guys”? “you”?
Prescriptivists and right-wingers were all outraged back in Shakespeare’s day, when progressives and descriptivists started using the plural pronoun “you” to address a single person. It would be the death of the English language! How dare they try to change… Read More ›
What is your favorite mispelling?
If you look cooly at the maps of common mispellings, paying attention to the miniscule details, it won’t take you a millenium to recognize that many of these words are frequently mispelled. The lists in those maps may or may… Read More ›
Reading Latin and Ancient Greek for fun and profit. For what? Fun? Yes, fun. Really. And the profit was purely intellectual, not financial.
Even in my circles, Latin and Greek are not exactly common topics of conversation. Friends and relatives are surprised whenever I read something in Ancient Greek—or even in Latin—for fun. OK, I’m weird. But you probably knew that already. What… Read More ›
Do you say Shábbos or Shabbát?
Shabbos (stress on first syllable, second vowel “o,” ends in “s”) or shabbat (stress on last syllable, second vowel “a,” ends in “t”)? Why can’t we agree on how to pronounce Hebrew? How about beth, bet, or beis? Shibboleth or… Read More ›
So you think you don’t have an accent?
You do have an accent—even if you think you’re speaking unaccented English. And you do speak a dialect—even if you think you’re speaking “ standard English.” In an amazing three-part must-see video, dialect coach Erik Singer takes us through a… Read More ›
Remember the Ebonics controversy?
Just over a couple of decades ago, the whole country was buzzing about something called Ebonics, now known as AAVE (African-American Vernacular English). You may or may not remember this, depending on your age and ethnicity. Go watch this short… Read More ›
What do you notice about King Charles III’s accent?
After the last few days, I’m sure you have observed that King Charles III’s accent is not identical to his mother’s. But to most of us they both seem to be speaking RP, the “posh” British accent that contrasts with cockney… Read More ›
What’s wrong with the word “inbox”?
Nothing is wrong with it! Even peevers who dislike all words that are newer than 50 years old can’t object: inbox is actually 64 years old! (In the sense, of course, of the physical tray on your desk, not in… Read More ›
Tell me again why you want to be a schwa. Perhaps it’s because you think it’s never stressed? Well, think again!
ə and ʌ: If you know those two symbols, can you hear the difference? (If you don’t know them, think about the English word above. It has two vowel sounds (as the third vowel letter is silent): the first is… Read More ›
Bad linguistics is bad science. Is it also bad politics?
You might think that the subject that we call linguistics is purely academic—in both senses of the word. But of course linguistics is also political, as is seen in all the controversies about pronouns, Ebonics, and PC language. This post,… Read More ›
More about “There’s no word for X in language Y.”
All too often I hear (or read) that “there’s no word for ________________ in __________” for some particular word and some particular language. I wrote about this kind of claim three years ago. I think I need to quote that… Read More ›
Nominal patterns
My older niece is named Hannah. My younger niece is named Aviva. My older great-niece is named Eve. And now, as of last night, my younger great-niece is named Ada. Aha! Do you detect a pattern?
Linguistics/math interface
People keep wondering how I journeyed from linguistics to math. Maybe they’re the same thing:
When you pronounce that middle consonant, do you hear z or s?
How do you pronounce “Tesla”? Do you pronounce the middle consonant like a z, as the Italians do, or like an s, as it is spelled? Both pronunciations are “correct,” but how do you say it? Linguists will tell you… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 