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Duran Adam

posted to Language Log on Wed 19th Jun 13

Another Turkish word is entering the international lexicon: "duran adam", or "standing man". Andy Carvin, "The 'Standing Man' of Turkey: Act of Quiet Protest Goes Viral", the two-way (NPR) 6/18/2013:As protests against the Turkish government enter their third ...
A new mixed language in the news

posted to Language Log on Tue 18th Jun 13

Lately we've seen a number of hair-tearing Language Log posts (including a couple of mine) about bad linguistic pseudo-hemi-demi-quasi-science getting into major science journals and the popular press. But sometimes the news media get it right, and here's one ...
Recency effect record?

posted to Language Log on Tue 18th Jun 13

Martyn Cornell:Check out the comment from sportzzzgirl at the link below, Strange development in language, where she is complaining about the use of the verb spell to mean to be relieved at their post, which has been in the English language, as someone else ...

Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa

posted to Language Log on Fri 26th Jun 09

Ever since Michael Jackson's unexpected death yesterday, his music has been omnipresent. The iTunes sales charts are overwhelmed by Michael Jackson songs: as of this afternoon, New York Magazine's Vulture blog reports, Jackson appears on 41 songs in the iTunes ...
On the other hand, alone

posted to Language Log on Wed 17th Apr 13

My faith in the possibility of integrity and self-criticism in humankind got a real boost the other day when I read a post on Lingua Franca in which an editor (who is also a professor in an English department) stopped to think about whether she was in the right ...
Let it Schnee??

posted to Language Log on Thu 6th Dec 12

With no comment from me, I'll let Peter Lewis on "Our Mechanical Brain" tell you about how Rosetta Stone tried to create a festive advertisement for their language-learning software and managed to get a three-word sentence wrong in each of three different languages, ...

LOL slash grammar, knowmsayin?

posted to Macmillan Dictionary Blog on Tue 7th May 13

New vocabulary appears constantly: we invent words, or more usually modify existing ones, to meet the needs of expression or just for fun. Sometimes, too, existing words get repurposed, switching grammatical classes or incorporating new ones: verbs and adjectives ...
On the other hand ...

posted to Random Idea English on Fri 19th Apr 13

You are all no doubt aware of the double linking device - On the one hand ... on the other (hand) ... used to contrast two ideas, for example:On the one hand we could try that new restaurant on Park Street. On the other we could just stay at home and order ...
carrying dogs

posted to John Wells's phonetic blog on Fri 15th Mar 13

English intonation is at the interface of phonetics and pragmatics. To describe the tunes you have to be able to analyse the changing pitch of the voice and the associated stress patterns, which is phonetics. To describe their meanings you have to be able to ...

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