When is it OK for a stranger to call you by your first name? This is a more complicated question than it first appears to be. I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts with guests during the pandemic, and… Read More ›
Linguistics
An English accent—in recordings from 1340 to 2006. (1340? What? Really!?)
Don’t read the title to this post. It’s a lie. Simon Roper has not actually discovered recordings from 1340. Or even 1400. But his 18-minute video is still very much worth watching. When I say “watching,” I mean more than… Read More ›
Racism and linguistics
I’ve only once cited the first-rate Humans Who Read Grammars. Yes, only once. But it’s not my fault! I would love to cite them more, but the authors post too rarely. What’s the matter with you guys? Do you have a life… Read More ›
The new Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction
Where do you go to find the answer to a question about science fiction? Google? Wikipedia? The New York Times? All of those are plausible answers, but it would sure be convenient to have everything you want to know in… Read More ›
Gaston is learning Polish—and liking it!
“Polish is a very difficult language,” says the typical American who doesn’t live in the Dorchester neighborhood known as the Polish Triangle. That’s primarily because they want to buy a vowel when they see so many consonants. They look at… Read More ›
Twelve Gifts for Writers
What a refreshing antidote to that horrid book of unscientific advice that I won’t name here. You know which horrid book I’m talking about: that undeservedly famous guide by Strunk and White. The antidote is the little book Twelve Gifts for Writers by… Read More ›
Nerds, Harry Potter, and Burmese translations: what do these have in common?
You know those “Common Bonds” puzzles, a.k.a. “What do these three have in common?” Look at the title to this post. The first two items are easy—nerds have a lot in common with Harry Potter—but Burmese translations? Take a look… Read More ›
Lost Yiddish words?
“Every language changes.” This is a standard response when peevers complain about “bad” English. In fact, it’s appropriate response #1. As you know, peevers file regular grievances about singular “they,” about new words, new meanings, the word “irregardless,” slang, the willingness… Read More ›
Gym Jordan, grammar expert
Leading Republican congressman Jim Jordan is well-known as an expert on “pronouns“:
What’s wrong with being named Quartus anyway?
So you’ve never heard of the name Quartus? I’m not surprised. Almost no one, after all, is named Quartus. But why not? Peter Gainsford answers the question—and other questions as well, most of which you didn’t even know you had…. Read More ›
Should the passive voice be avoided? And what’s wrong with Strunk? And what about White, while we’re at it?
The bill was signed by the president. The bill remained on the president’s desk for five days. Mistakes were made. All three of those sentences are in the passive voice, right? Actually, wrong. Only the first and third are. So… Read More ›
Does every language have an alphabet? What about abjads and abugidas — not to mention syllabaries?
Is there such a thing as the Hebrew alphabet? How about the Japanese alphabet? Or the Hindi? “Of course,” you reply. “At least I know there’s a Hebrew alphabet. It has letters like מ, which means ‘m,’ and it’s written… Read More ›
The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book
I just wish this book had been published 20 years ago! Alex Bellos has compiled an amazing collection of language-related puzzles in the Language Lover’s Puzzle Book, released a few month ago in the UK and more recently elsewhere in the English-speaking… Read More ›
Role-playing games: based on linguistics???
For some obscure reason (I don’t really understand why) I’ve just never been into D&D or any other role-playing games. And yet… …and yet I keep running into various aspects of RPGs (role-playing games) that definitely interest me. Unsurprisingly these… Read More ›
Automated translation? What could possibly go wrong?
It was 1968. Fully automated translation was just around the corner. Or so I learned in a computer science class. Of course there was officially no such discipline at the time, so it was actually an applied math class, but… Read More ›
How do you spell царь in English? Czar, tsar, csar, or tzar?
Take a word that’s written in one alphabet (Cyrillic, say). Now spell it in another alphabet (Roman, say). Why? Well, Russian is written in Cyrillic, but it’s often necessary to write Russian words in English, using the familiar Roman alphabet…. Read More ›
English is weird.
No, I’m not talking about the notorious difficulties of English spelling. Nor am I talking about the oddities of English idioms and compound words, such as the all-too-well-known “Why do we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?”… Read More ›
Linguists
Mouse-over text: “Do you feel like the answer depends on whether you’re currently in the hole, versus when you refer to the events later after you get out? Assuming you get out.”
Pronounce bruschetta, schism, and schedule. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
No, the “sch” in bruschetta is not pronounced like the English “sh”! It’s pronounced like the English “sk.” Bruschetta is an Italian word, not a German word, so don’t pronounce it as in Schadenfreude, to quote James Harbeck in the link below. Actually, the issue is slightly more… Read More ›
Not possible! What are emojis doing in 1807?
How much of this advertisement (from 1807!) can you figure out? Note that it says “hieroglyphical” where we would have said “rebus” when I was a kid or “emojis” today. You’ll probably do much better at reading it than I… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 