Language Log

Doyle Redland has the story:

Via Talking Points Memo comes this correction from the Los Angeles Times: FOR THE RECORD: Sarah Palin: In some editions of Sunday's Section A, an article about Sarah Palin's speech to the National Tea Party Convention quoted her as saying, "How's that hopey, changing stuff working out for you?" She said, "How's that hopey, changey […]

James Delingpole, "Climategate goes uber-viral, Gore flees leaving evil henchmen to defend crumbling citadel", The Telegraph, 12/4/2009: Climategate is now huge. Way, way bigger than the Mainstream Media (MSM) is admitting it is – as Richard North demonstrates in this fascinating analysis. Using what he calls a Tiger Woods Index (TWI), he compares the amount […]

It's almost over. The English Language WordClock is ticking inexorably towards its zero hour early Wednesday morning, marking the imagined birth of the mythical millionth English word. But what will happen then? The Million Word March FAQ over at the Global Language Monitor is silent on this subject. None of the journalists interviewing Paul Payack, […]

This morning's BBC's News Hour program featured one of the most densely nonsensical three-minute sequences that I can ever recall having heard from a respectable media outlet: Your browser does not support the audio element.

There has been quite a bit of interest in a series of guest posts by Don Ringe on the early linguistic history of Europe. Yesterday, he sent along another installment, which I've posted below on his behalf, as well as an answer to a question from the comments on an earlier post, which I'll post […]

Josh Marshall was amused by Governor Tom Ridge's word-substitution error, in an interview last night on MSNBC: But the fact is, Governor, that you've *had* eight years of a Bush administration, and a lot of Republicans in Congress for the last eight years, so why wouldn't the American people say "Look, they've had their shot, […]

The recent gift of a staggering $100,000,000 by a single person to Harvard University — the largest gift from an alumnus in Harvard's history — has just been announced, in prose that suggests no matter how much money they may raise, the development and public relations staff at Harvard are afflicted by ancient irrational terrors: […]

On the wall behind the table where I usually sit to blog, there's a framed print, shown in faded miniature on the right. The title below the picture is "Dr. Syntax Making a Discovery". But there's not a subjunctive or a preterite in sight. The couple in the foreground, though perhaps engaged in discovery, don't […]

From The Japan Times: A foray into the realm of Japanese ‘dead words’ Trendy buzzwords tend to be most at risk of dying out as they often reflect ideas and trends that are fleeting. By Tadasu TakahashiStaff writer Oct 31, 2023 Sometimes whole languages go extinct, more often certain words within languages cease to exist as […]

As documented here (2009), here (2010), here (2013), and here (2017), it's controversial whether the Indus Valley (IV) inscriptions are really a "script" or something more like a set of logos.  Many people have tried, but it hasn't been definitively cracked.  Now computer scientists are making new attempts to unlock its secrets. "An ancient language […]

An introduction and guide to my series of posts “Corpora and the Second Amendment” is available here. The corpus data that is discussed can be downloaded here. That link will take you to a shared folder in Dropbox. Important: Use the "Download" button at the top right of the screen. New URL for COFEA and […]

My most recent post started out as a very minor note of approval about the continuing spread of singular they in journalism. Then the person who sent me the quote realized that Phillip Garcia, named in the cited newspaper story, had a preference for being referred to with the pronoun they, which nullified the point. […]