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October 3, 2010 @ 7:00 am
· Filed under prepositions, Prescriptivist poppycock, Syntax
John McIntyre notes on his blog You Don't Say that a man named Rod Gelatt, a retired professor of journalism who taught at the Missouri School of Journalism, writes in a letter to the Columbia Missourian newspaper (responding to an article calling for more attention to correcting grammar errors in online content): in the announcement […]
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September 25, 2010 @ 11:47 am
· Filed under This blogging life
One of the secrets of Language Log is that because of its lack of any arrangement for revenue (aaaaggghh! how could we have forgotten something as vital as income?) its writers have to moonlight doing other jobs, just to make the rent or mortgage payments. We all have jobs that we do in the odd […]
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September 16, 2010 @ 12:26 pm
· Filed under Awesomeness, Dictionaries, Eggcorns, Words words words
This is an auspicious moment: a Language Log-ism has been entered into the Oxford English Dictionary. The latest quarterly update for the online revision of the OED includes this note: eggcorn n. As early as 1844, people were reinterpreting the word “acorn” as “eggcorn”, either deliberately, for humorous purposes, or in all innocence, in a […]
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September 12, 2010 @ 6:04 am
· Filed under Prescriptivist poppycock
Geoff Pullum's musings on Simon Heffer's aprioristic prescriptivism ("English Grammar: Not for debate") were based on a report by the BBC, which is a reliably unreliable witness. So I wondered whether Mr. Heffer's usage advice was equally empty when taken straight from the source. The first sample that I found was "Strictly English: Part one", […]
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August 27, 2010 @ 4:50 am
· Filed under Syntax
Brett Reynolds (who writes the blog English, Jack) raised an interesting question of detail about English grammar the other day in an email to me and Rodney Huddleston: What is the syntactic category (part of speech) of slash, as used in There is also a study slash guest bedroom, or We need a corkscrew slash […]
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August 14, 2010 @ 9:57 am
· Filed under Eggcorns
Could that famously well-edited publication be the source of one of those sporadic folk-etymologies that we call eggcorns? Sure: see "And every lion tongue cast down", 8/1/2005. The mistake discussed there is more of a mondegreen, but it involves the same sort of creative mis-hearing. However, the example that Ian Leslie sent in this morning, […]
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August 10, 2010 @ 4:46 am
· Filed under Linguistics in the comics, Words words words
The phrase placebo questions comes up in today's Dilbert strip. You can see the intended meaning (once you realize that Dilbert's boss has handed him a project so confidential that a lot depends on his keeping it rigorously secret), despite the stretch from the medical use that nearly everyone is familiar with. It's an unusual […]
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July 29, 2010 @ 5:58 am
· Filed under Language and culture, Variation
According to the Guardian, The Belgian singer Plastic Bertrand has admitted that the voice that gave the world the 1977 Euro-punk anthem Ça Plane Pour Moi was not his. Roger Jouret, the man behind the Plastic Bertrand persona, had previously denied that he was not the singer on the record. But in an interview with […]
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July 18, 2010 @ 12:08 pm
· Filed under Words words words
Yesterday, in discussing Kevin Fowler's song Pound Sign, there was some debate about the origin of the term "pound sign" for the symbol #. I suggested that it all started with the substitution of # for £ on American typewriter keyboards, but others argued that # was a standard symbol for pound(s) avoirdupois. I've heard […]
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May 14, 2010 @ 4:43 pm
· Filed under Lost in translation
Andrew Jacobs' article on Shanghai's efforts to unmangle Chinglish generated tremendous interest — for several days it was the most e-mailed NYT article. The Chinglish fervor also spawned a broader interest in strange signs from all over the world. Several friends have called to my attention this wonderful collection of bizarre notices, placards, and postings […]
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May 4, 2010 @ 5:39 pm
· Filed under Language and culture
One of the many difficult things about English spelling is that you can't choose the right letter for an unstressed vowel unless you know the word, or guess its etymology, or get lucky. Everybody gets the wrong end of this one from time to time — certainly I do — and that's why dictionaries and […]
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April 2, 2010 @ 11:34 pm
· Filed under Ignorance of linguistics, Language and advertising, Snowclones
This is from an actual job listing on BusinessWorkforce.com, advertising a position at the "marketing innovations agency" Ignited: Integrated Copywriter/Etymologist Sure, the Eskimos have 40 words for “snow,” but Ignited has 40 words for “next.” That’s because we’re kind of obsessed with what’s next, whether that be in technology or media or Eskimo etymology. If […]
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March 28, 2010 @ 3:01 pm
· Filed under Humor, Words words words
A Language Log reader named metanea points out to us that the Urban Dictionary claims aibohphobia is a technical term for the irrational fear of palindromicity. The etymology will raise a smile. Just stare at the word for a few seconds, and it will reveal itself to you.
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