Language Log

Today's Dilbert:

Today's Sally Forth:

The next-to-latest xkcd:

Yesterday's 9 Chickweed Lane:

Griffy and Zippy experience whateverism of an extreme sort:

The Valley in question is the San Fernando Valley of southern California, home of Valspeak, a sociolect made famous by the 1982 Frank Zappa song "Valley Girl" (as performed by his daughter Moon Unit Zappa) and the 1983 movie based on it. The song is packed with linguistic features that are (or have become) stereotypes of the variety (especially as used by affluent upper-middle-class young women), but whatever isn't in the song.

The current Questionable Content:

I'm in Brighton for InterSpeech 2009, but unfortunately duties in Philadelphia made it impossible for me to make it here in time to act as a human control in the 2009 Loebner Prize competion, the annual administration of the "Turing Test". As the ISCA Secretariat put it,

We are seeking volunteers to pit themselves against the entries — and prove to the judges just how human they are!

The test involves using a computer interface to chat (type messages) for 5 minutes with a judge, who does the same with the program, not knowing which is which. The judge has to determine which is the true human.

Another Zits cartoon on teenspeak:

And no, I can't make out what he is saying, though I could catch a few words.

[Addendum: Dhananjay Jagannathan writes to say that he has decoded what Jeremy is saying as: "I'm going over to Hector's house and I don't know if I'll be back in time for dinner so start without me." ]

According to today's Cathy, men now have to worry about this too:

… or if you prefer, some aspects of relevance theory, the next-to-latest xkcd:

Today's Dinosaur Comics disposes of the sorites paradox:

(Click image for a larger version.)

The most recent xkcd:

(The original has the title tag "You know what really helps an existential crisis? Wondering how much shelf space to leave for a Terry Pratchett collection.")

According to Tycho at Penny Arcade ("The True Face of Our Enemy", 8/17/2009)

The Think B4 You Speak campaign is basically incoherent, and operates from some deep misconceptions about how and why people communicate. These assertions have been collated and placed sequentially in today's comic offering

The strip in question:

(Click on the image for a larger version.)