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April 18, 2012 @ 1:13 pm
· Filed under Language and the law, Taboo vocabulary
The marginally linguistic topic of freedom of linguistic expression occasionally occupies me here on Language Log, as you probably know. And you may be aware that my instincts tend toward the libertarian end of the spectrum, and the defense of the First Amendment. Possibly you are also aware that there really isn't anything I despise […]
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February 20, 2012 @ 8:40 am
· Filed under Humor, Language and politics
Senator Rick Santorum has taken over the lead in national polling for the Republican presidential nomination; and so there is increasing interest in his ideas for new national policies, for example as he explains them in this October 2011 interview with Shane Vander Hart. As a linguist and a true conservative, I'm especially intrigued by […]
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January 9, 2012 @ 7:07 pm
· Filed under passives, Prescriptivist poppycock, This blogging life, Writing
I want to share something with you Language Log readers. But for heaven's sake don't mention it to anyone at The Chronicle of Higher Education or its Lingua Franca blog. This is just between us. There is no telling what would happen over at the Chronicle if they read this, so just keep it dark, […]
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July 29, 2011 @ 10:44 am
· Filed under Language and culture, Pragmatics
Geoff Pullum, "It's like so unfair", 11/22/2003: Why are the old fogeys and usage whiners of the world so upset about the epistemic-hedging use of like, as in She's, like, so cool? The old fogeys use equivalent devices themselves, all the time. An extremely common one is "if you will". […] Like functions in younger […]
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March 7, 2011 @ 6:20 pm
· Filed under Language and politics, Peeving
Christopher Hitchens, "American Inaction Favors Qaddafi", Slate 3/7/2011: Our common speech contains numberless verbs with which to describe the infliction of violence or cruelty or brutality on others. It only really contains one common verb that describes the effect of violence or cruelty or brutality on those who, rather than suffering from it, inflict it. […]
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August 28, 2009 @ 10:29 am
· Filed under Books
I'm spending today at Berkeley, participating in a one-day conference on "The Google Books Settlement and the Future of Information Access". I'll live-blog the discussion as the day unfolds, leaving comments off until it's over. I believe that the sessions are being recorded, and the recordings will be available on the web at some time […]
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May 20, 2009 @ 8:11 am
· Filed under Language and politics
In the coverage of the civil war in Sri Lanka, I haven't seen much discussion of its linguistic aspects. In particular, the Sinhala Only Act of 1956 was a key event, whose causes and consequences are worth considering.
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December 3, 2008 @ 10:20 am
· Filed under Variation
I have some things to say about markedness, variation, and the role of habits in creating meaning. And I was planning to say them this morning, taking as a starting point the US/UK difference in verb agreement with collective nouns like government and committee that Geoff Pullum cited in his recent post "More on verb […]
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April 11, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
· Filed under Language and the law
In response to my post earlier today on "Sex-neutral 'he': the constitutional question", David Seidman writes: This has nothing directly to do with your post on the sex-neutral he, but I thought you might be interested in a concurring opinion by Justice Blackmun in a Supreme Court case involving an old statute dealing with law […]
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