Language Log

Just about 13 years ago, O.J. Simpson defense attorney Johnnie Cochran made news with these words from his closing argument:

Remember these words: "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit". (.wav)

I'm not saying that this useful rhyme was the key to Simpson's acquittal, but it certainly stuck in people's minds. Together with images of O.J. struggling to put the gloves on, the significance of the ill-fitting glove evidence to the outcome of the trial is not a matter of significant debate. It certainly didn't hurt that Cochran was an effective speaker.

Compare this with yesterday's news reports of the opening statements from the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver Salim Hamdan, whose civilian defense attorney Harry Schneider has been quoted as follows:

The evidence is that he worked for wages, he didn't wage attacks on America […] He had a job because he had to earn a living, not because he had a jihad against America.

Get it? "he worked for wages" vs. "he didn't wage attacks" — see? "He had a job vs. "not because he had a jihad". See?

If this is the best Schneider can do against the prosecution's argument that Hamdan knew about "the dome" — which the U.S. prosecution team is arguing refers to the U.S. Capitol building (Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Stone: "Virtually no one knew the intended target, but the accused knew") — then Hamdan looks to be in big trouble.

Here at Language Log we've commented a lot about the media's coverage of animal communication (birds, monkeys, cows, etc.) but, as far as I know, none of this has dealt with animals that actually swear oaths of office. So I'll remedy this omission by referring to a few media articles about police dogs that swear.

From Decatur, Georgia we read that a police dog is a "sworn officer." This article doesn't explain how the dog did the swearing, but the police must believe that he raised his front forepaw and did it somehow. 

Kieran Healy, who will spending a year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, is looking forward to research at the "Stanford Superconducting Supersocializer, which will … propel local college sophomores at tremendous speeds into unfamiliar groups of people in an effort to plumb the structure of the elementary particles of social interaction", in order to test "the emerging Standard Model of sociophysics":

From Phil Ford at Dial M for Musicology:

His analysis:  "Sometimes I think that academics have a kind of mental operating procedure designed to insulate them from having to consider anyone else's ideas at all."

A couple of days ago, on MetaTalk, Daddy-o explained that "It's is not the possessive form of it".

The Straightener commented: "I've cut people for less than this."

Eideteker responded: "I think you mean fewer."

Here on Language Log we have recently been twitted by readers who believe we have been insufficiently attentive to celebrity linguists, in particular Noam Chomsky (I find the idea that we should choose topics for our postings using personal fame as a guiding metric bizarre, but there it is). Mark Liberman has now responded, linking to a frivolous Facebook group pitting Chomsky against Labov. We've been frivolous about Chomsky before, in a posting about Ali G's interview of him; in two postings about Chomsky as the object of sexual arousal; and in a posting quoting Woody Allen's "The Whore of Mensa".

But (as Bruce Webster suggested to me) we seem not to have discussed the famous Chomskybot, which has been around in one version or another for about twenty years.

In the Palais des Congrès at Porte Maillot in Paris, the virtual placards for Acoustics 2008 are — oddly — sharing the announcement screens with Les Journées Francophones de Pathologie Digestive 2009 ("The French-Speaking Days of Digestive Pathology"). This struck me as odd for several reasons, starting with the name. It's the annual meeting of the Société Française de Gastroentérologie (SNFGE); and (for example) the Linguistic Society of America just calls its annual meeting its annual meeting, not "The English-Speaking Days of Language Analysis", or even just "The Days of Language Analysis" or whatever. Second, the SNFGE meets every year in March, and surely the Palais des Congrès, creaky as it is, must still have many events scheduled before next March. But finally, the 2009 meeting will actually have a different name, according to the SNFGE's web site:

Les JFPD deviennent les JFHOD !
Les Journées Francophones de Pathologie Digestive changent de nom en 2009 pour devenir les JFHOD (prononcer 'jifod') pour Journées Francophones d'Hépato-gastroentérologie et d'Oncologie Digestive.

The JFPD becomes the JFHOD!
The French-Speaking Days of Digestive Pathology will change its name in 2009 to become the JFHOD (pronounced 'jifod') for French-Speaking Days of Hepato-gastroenterology and Digestive Oncology.

A couple of weeks ago, it became clear that a certain number of Language Log readers feel that we don't devote enough attention to linguistic celebrity. "As a non-linguist", wrote Moira Less, "I must admit to having been surprised at how infrequently Chomsky is mentioned here (almost never?). I think he's only linguist who is world famous."

I observed that Chomsky's name had come up in three posts in the previous month, and about 120 times since the blog began, which works out to an average of about twice a month. But in vain — Moira took this as confirmation rather than refutation, and others chimed in as well.

So I'm happy to be able to point you to a facebook group featuring not one, but two celebrity linguists: Labov vs. Chomsky—Ultimate Smackdown.

I always thought I knew what people meant when they say they're on "airport business"–like buying an airline ticket, dropping off or meeting someone, or flying somewhere themselves. But leave it to resourceful suburban Washington DC area commuters to add new meaning to this word. This Washington Post article describes the lexicographical advances they've caused recently.

Here at Language Log, we don't just sit around unravelling the mysteries of by-topicalization, stress-timing, resumptive pronouns, and the like. We have our playful sides: cartoons, "lost in translation" examples, Cupertinos, fun with taboo avoidance. Here's today's little amuse-bouche (or, if you prefer, amuse-gueule), which came to me originally on a card from a friend: a photo of a sign on a platform at the Penrith (English Lake District) railway station. The card was a grainy print-out, but here's a much better image:

At the end of a series of fascinating Bad Science columns and weblog posts about the £2,000 Dore “miracle cure” for dyslexia, Ben Goldacre wrote ("Blogs vs mainstream media", The Guardian, 5/31/2008):

I make no sweeping claims about blogs and mainstream media – both have their roles – but in this case it seems the bloggers win on timeliness, accuracy, relevance, effort, ethics, and stupid names. Gimpyblog broke the news … Podblack … Brainduck …  Holfordwatch …

The lede of Stephen Colbert's "Smokin' Pole: The Fight for Arctic Riches", 6/10/2008, suggested to Language Log reader Matrixmonkey36 that Mr. Colbert also reads Language Log:

Nation, there are seven Eskimo words for melting snow, and all of them also mean "opportunity". [audio]

Let's say at least that some Language Log themes are working their way into public discourse. Background: here and here.

Scotland's most popular soft drink is a local one, called Irn-Bru (pronounced "iron brew"). It rivals or outstrips even Coca Cola in sales. Many much-loved humorous TV commercials for Irn Bru have run over the years, some of them offering wonderful parodic introductions to Scottish life and culture (watch this one, for example). Print ads echoing them were also published. Some of the ideas the ad agency came up with were judged funny but a bit too raunchy, tasteless, or controversial for public release. Recently, though, the company (A. G. Barr) released on its website a gallery of suppressed ads. Several involve silly-naughty double entendres of a typically British sort (a crustacean saying "I'm into Irn-Bru and hard-core prawn sites"; a gorilla saying, "Gimme Irn-Bru or I'll shuffle my nuts in front of your mother"; an old man pointing to his guffawing donkey and saying "If it ain't Irn-Bru you can kiss my ass"). Some seem a bit bleak (a ragged and unshaven man with a desperate down-and-out look saying: "Irn-Bru's never let me down. Not like mum, dad, Terry, and the wife"). And at least one of them provides (for yes, this is Language Log, not Scottish Soft-drink Industry Advertising Log) a lovely illustration of an important and linguistically interesting syntactico-semantic point: