As Arnold reported late last year, Language Log received the LSA's Linguistics, Language and the Public Award at the LSA Annual Meeting this weekend. I was there, but, sadly, only with a poor cell-phone camera. Ah well — for posterity, some photos below the fold.
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Google Suggest is an fun new tool for probing the textual Zeitgeist. Using it on "Language Log" yields:
Bare "Language Log" gets 36,900,000 results (as we can see by getting suggested continuations for "language lo", though I'll spare you the picture). It's clear that lots of regular readers use Google to find us, rather than typing in the URL or using a browser bookmark or an RSS feed.
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Listening to Weekend America on my way back from a holiday party on Saturday, I heard one of the best noun phrases I think I've ever heard (uttered by WA host John Moe). Coincidentally, it's in this short segment on holiday parties and cocktails, very near the beginning in fact, so take a listen if you care to. Here's the noun phrase in context:
This time of year weekends are a time for holiday parties, and all the traditions that go along with holiday parties. You know, the sweaters that you only wear just that one time of year, the conversations that you end up in with people who you're trying to remember the names of all the way through but you kinda smile and fake your way through…
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