Language and food

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Some of my Language Log colleagues are too modest for their own good, neglecting to mention here relevant things they've published or blogged on in other places.

A little while ago, I learned that Dan Jurafsky has a cool Language of Food blog (here), an outgrowth of a Stanford Introductory Seminar he's taught a few times. I found out about his blog only because, knowing his interest in the topic, I sent him a link to a recent posting on my own blog about nouns denoting food or drink being usable, metonymically, to refer to events ("After pizza, we watched a movie"), and he told me about his LoF blog.

It's a rich domain: vocabulary (in many languages) for food and cooking, including both everyday vocabulary and (semi-)technical vocabulary, cultural forms in these areas (when do we eat? what do we eat then? who does this? how much variation is there? how do we prepare this food? who prepares it? what cultural values do we assign to these foods?), and much else. Check it out.



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