Language Log

Robert Ayers sent in this cartoon: And asked "Was the 'colored person' fall from grace strictly a one off due to history? I see no movement from, eg, 'Asian person' to 'person of Asia'. Or 'Irishman' to 'man of Ireland'."

Is there a mistake here?

This is a full length martial arts action movie (English title "Sword Master"). You probably won't be able to stand watching much of it, and you have to put up with some pretty atrocious fighting scenes, but if you stick around for a few minutes of the Chinglish subtitles, you'll find them to be quite […]

From Eoin Ryan: I noticed this in an article on Salon.com, "Charter schools are pushing public education to the breaking point: Charters are driving Boston’s public education system to the financial brink" by Jeff Bryant, published on Friday, February 8. The overall tenor of the piece, as the headline and subhead make clear, is that […]

From Zeyao Wu:

From "How to Complain at a Restaurant? Just Ask Our Critic", NYT 2/5/2019: In general, the more specific your complaint, the more likely it is to be understood. The worst, most useless and potentially dangerous complaints are broad, sweeping condemnations. “There is complaining that makes you think about what you’re doing, and there is complaining […]

Today's xkcd: Mouseover text: "There's one person in Missouri who says "carbo bev" who the entire rest of the country HATES." alt="Carbonated Beverage Language Map"

Mongolian gets 97 points for singing "Amarillo by Morning" on US TV show but didn't understand a word he was singing. His pronunciation was perfect. [VHM:  The YouTube video linked to here is currently unavailable, but our resourceful Language Log readers have elsewhere found this song sung by Enkh Erdene and others by him as well, […]

Happy and healthy year of the Pig!

From Anand Mahindra's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/anandmahindra/status/1090479366235213824

Sign in Beihai Municipality, Guangxi Province that is circulating on WeChat:

When human beings hear others speaking but are unable to comprehend what is being said, to what do they compare such speech?  We will gain one common characterization from this article about a prematurely dying Iraqi dialect: "Iraqis amid Mosul's silent ruins fear the loss of a dialect", by Sam Kimball, SFGate (2/1/19) It begins […]

Photo taken in the reception area of a hospital: (Source)