In addition to the many "nots" he uttered in last night's debate, Trump poured on the negations in this tweet today: Hillary's been failing for 30 years in not getting the job done – it will never change. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2016
I don't watch broadcast TV a lot, but over the past couple of days I've experienced more than four hours of live television — which turned out to be a surprisingly positive experience. Sunday afternoon I watched the Philadelphia Eagles play the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Monday evening I watched the first presidential debate. My expectations for […]
As Geoff Pullum noted, in last night's presidential debate, many of Trump's interruptions of Clinton (or shall we say his "manterruptions") involved on-the-fly denials of what Clinton was saying. Geoff describes one such denial: "'Not!' he snapped at one point, like a 9-year-old, during one of her utterances." Let's go to the transcript: CLINTON: Well, […]
Geoff quoted Vox on Donald Trump's interruptions during last night's debate, and discussed the extraordinary childishness of some of those interruptions. I don't have much time this morning, so I'll just add a few words about words. Trump used 35% more wordforms than Clinton did — 8,866 to 6,580, by my trivial debate-analysis program's count […]
It's a bit early for Language Log to do any analysis of the presidential debate last night. Where I live, it came on after 2 a.m., and where Mark lives it is still only 5:15 a.m. right now. But Vox has already analysed the interruption rate, a well-known index of gender in speech style. Trump interrupted […]
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A smart and generally careful graduate student from China recently handed in an English –> Chinese translation. In checking over his work, I noticed several mistakes, from which I select here a couple of examples. Except in two cases, I won't point out the problems with inappropriate word choice and grammar, but will focus on […]
Emily Yahr, "Read George W. Bush’s speech at the African American Museum, 13 years after signing the bill to build it", Washington Post 9/24/2016: Your browser does not support the audio element. Our country is better and more vibrant because of their contributions and the contributions of millions of African Americans. No telling of American […]
I continue to be puzzled by the fact that phishers are unable to manage simple number agreement: Um, "there are recent update in our security features"? And did they never learn about comma splices? "This is simply for your safety online, after your account update normal banking activities will resume."
Lisa Feldman Barrett, "Hillary Clinton's 'Angry' Face", NYT 9/23/2016: When Hillary Clinton participated in a televised forum on national security and military issues this month, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, tweeted that she was “angry and defensive the entire time — no smile and uncomfortable.” Mrs. Clinton, evidently undaunted by Mr. […]
Rhett & Link: "They're so close they can finish each other's sentences."
According to my iPhone-bearing sources, iOS 10.0.2 Addresses an issue that could prevent headphone audio controls from temporarily not working I hate it when audio controls are prevented from temporarily not working, don't you?
If you were scanning science-related stories in the mass media over the past 10 days or so, you saw some extraordinary news. A few examples: "Scientists discover a ‘universal human language’". "The hidden sound patterns that could overturn years of linguistic theory" ("In a surprising new study, researchers have uncovered powerful associations between sounds and meanings […]
Yixue Yang went to the Ting Wong Restaurant 天旺大饭店 in Philadelphia's Chinatown the other day. Here's the order the waiter took down: