You've probably heard sentences like this a thousand times: "Picture it in your mind's eye". How literally can we take that? "What Does it Mean to 'See With the Mind's Eye?'" (Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic [12/4/14]): Imagine the table where you've eaten the most meals. Form a mental picture of its size, texture, and color. […]
There's a wonderful new podcast on linguistic matters that I highly recommend to all Language Log readers. It's called Lingthusiasm, and it's appropriately billed as "a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics." The podcast is co-hosted by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. You may know Gretchen from her All Things Linguistic blog or her posts on The […]
Even if you don't know any Cantonese but listen carefully to people speaking it, you probably can tell that it has an abundance of particles. For speakers of Mandarin who do not understand Cantonese, the proliferation of particles, especially in utterance final position, is conspicuous. Non-speakers of Cantonese, confronted by all these aa3, ge3, gaa3, […]
An email from Jonathan Weinberg: I’m passing along, for whatever interest it holds, Jonathan Gienapp’s new (to my mind very good) essay on originalism in constitutional law, which I thought you might appreciate. [(myl) Jonathan Gienapp, "Constitutional Originalism and History", Process 3/20/2017.] His focus is on originalists’ shift from their initial position that the Constitution […]
This is neat: "Pink Trombone", by Neil Thapen. By the same author — doodal:
"Scottish parliament to seek new independence vote despite UK government rebuff", Reuters 3/22/2017: Holding a non-binding referendum would be damaging, argues Stephen Tierney, Professor of Constitutional Theory at Edinburgh Law School, because it would not provide certainty in a highly divisive situation. "The central importance of commonly agreed rules and a neutral referee in […]
Paula Abul sends in a spooneristic eggcorn: I've just come across an eggcorn I've never seen before, and thought it might interest you. It is the phrase "who will rename anonymous", in place of the more usual "remain anonymous". A cursory Google search shows a fair few instances. Her example is from Kate Allen, "What Your Hairstylist […]
For the Washington Post opinion blog The Plum Line, Greg Sargent wrote: "The events of this week are revealing with a new level of clarity that President Trump and the White House have ventured far beyond unconventional levels of dishonesty." Obligatory screenshot:
Below is an email from Eoin Ryan (with added audio): Last week on Language Log you posted about a "tentative would" as used by Mike Pence, which reminded me of a use of "would" which I find interesting and may be similar, but I think it is different. Also, last week I had no clear examples […]
As of March 17 2017, DCHP-2 went live: the Second Edition of A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. The Project History, by Stefan Dollinger and Margery Fee, is worth reading — it includes this interesting variation on James Murray's Reading Programme: Because funding was slow to materialize, we adapted our data collection methods to […]
Video from this article by Anthony Kuhn on the NPR Parallels blog: "For Years, I've Been A Correspondent In China. This Month, I Became A Viral Star" (3/18/17) https://ondemand.npr.org/npr-mp4/npr/nprvid/2017/03/20170315_nprvid_kuhnchinacctv-n-600000.mp4 Also available on Weibo here.
Language Log often weighs in when courts try to nail down the meaning of a statute. Laws are written in natural language—though one might long, by formalization, to end the thousand natural ambiguities that text is heir to—and thus judges are forced to play linguist. Happily, this week's "case in the news" is one where the lawyers managed to […]
This is a St. Patrick's Day guest post by Stephen Goranson. The five-line nonsense verses with AABBA rhymes existed long before they were called Limericks, it's generally agreed, but why they got that name lacks consensus. Let's start with an example: There was a young rustic named Mallory Who drew but a very small salary. […]