Language Log

Christopher Alderton saw this flyer on his way to work a few days ago:

A Craigslist ad posted 20 days ago — "Seeking a Blog Writer for Voice Stress Analysis Technology": We are looking for someone to ghostwrite blog posts and articles for a large company that specializes in computer-aided voice stress analysis technology or CVSA. We want you to primarily discuss the scientific research backing it up and […]

A spam email I received this morning (addressed to me and three other addresses, no subject; the sender was "david mark" at davidmark0066@gmail.com) had the following text: Hello this is david i will like to know if you can handle my weeding ceremony  and do you own the service ?? I actually never realized people had […]

Nathan Hopson saw this sign on the ferry from Hong Kong to Macau.

I'm used to getting spammed about every plausibly product-related web search I do. But I'm at a loss to understand what triggered an email this morning with the Subject line "Trending Just For You: Be Yourself: A Journal for Catholic Girls". The body of the message:

Last January 21 The Economist actually printed a letter I wrote pointing out that how wirelessly to hack a car was a ridiculous way to say "how to wirelessly hack a car," and resulted from a perverted and dimwitted obeisance to a zombie rule. But did they actually listen, and think about changing their ways? […]

I think Mark Liberman may have been concerned that perhaps my post "Pronominal reference to the arbitrary dog" hinted at being tempted toward the Recency Illusion. Not true, of course: even when surprised by some point of usage that I notice, I never conclude I must therefore be the first to have encountered it. On […]

SoraNews24 (4/20/17) has an article by Scott Wilson titled "W.T.F. Japan: Top 5 kanji with the longest readings【Weird Top Five】 ".  Before attempting to read and critique this article, we need to familiarize ourselves with some basic terms and concepts about the modern Japanese writing system.  It basically consists of thousands of kanji (Chinese characters) and […]

In a comment on "Electric Sheep", Tim wrote: Just want to share a little Google Translate poetry resulting from drumming my fingers on the keyboard while set to Thai: There are six sparks in the sky, each with six spheres. The sphere of the sphere is the sphere of the sphere.

Donald Trump has developed the habit of ending his speeches with the formula "Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America". Thus from his 2/6/2017 speech at CENTCOM: Your browser does not support the audio element. And from his 4/21/2017 Weekly Radio Address: Your browser does not support the audio element. But at the end […]

Following Bean's guest post about being scorned by an 8-year-old child for not using singular they when it was appropriate, Language Log now presents the first evidence (to my knowledge) of a newspaper abandoning the usual use of it to refer to animals, and instead using singular they for an unknown arbitrary animal. This is […]

Spotted by Greg Ralph in a London restaurant:

[This is a guest post by Bean] My eight-year-old daughter in conversation with me last night: Scene: I am giving her a sock, which she had brought home, only to find she already had both of her socks. So it logically must belong to some other girl (it's obviously a girl's sock). Me: So, bring […]