Language Log

Another example of extreme singular their, this one from Google+:

I don't think we've had one of these before. In many earlier posts (e.g. "Candidates must be a student", 4/16/2009; "Xtreme singular they", 4/18/2008; "'Singular they', God said it, I believe it, that settles it", 9/13/2006; "They are a prophet", 10/21/2004), we've noted that they/them/their is often used with non-specific singular human antecedents, not only […]

In the comments on yesterday's post, Ran Ari-Gur raised the possibility that sentence-initial conjunctions are verbally and plenarily inspired of God, just as singular they is. Ran's evidence came from a sample consisting of the first 80 verses of Genesis in the original Hebrew and in the King James translation. I decided to check more […]

I recently learned about a praiseworthy initiative, the Google Lime Scholarship for Students with Disabilities, whose eligibility requirements are expressed (in part) as follows: Candidates must be: A student entering their junior or senior year of undergraduate study […] […] A person with a disability (defined as someone who has, or considers themselves to have, […]

From yesterday's editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the conviction of a local political boss, Vince Fumo, on 137 corruption-related charges: There was an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against Fumo. That would be the city that spawned him, took what he delivered and then pretended to be shocked, shocked at the unsavory details of […]

This morning, from the airport in Brussels, I want to following up on our discussion of discourse anaphora ("Why are some summatives labeled 'vague'?", 5/21/2008; "More theory trumping practice", 5/22/2008; "Poor pitiful which", 5/23/2008; "Clarity, choice, and evidence", 5/23/2008), in the spirit of Friday's post about "Prescriptivist science".

Is there any "prescriptivist science"? Could there be any? The reaction of some linguists will be that "prescriptivist science" is as much as a contradiction in terms as "creation science" is. But I disagree.

It's often impossible to tell the difference between reduced him and reduced them. In particular, I can't tell whether John Edwards said "I just voted for him on Tuesday, so…" — meaning Barack Obama — or "I just voted for them on Tuesday, so…" — i.e. sex-neutral them, meaning either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, […]

This is something I've been waiting for for decades: "Onomatopoeia Odyssey:  How do animals sound across languages?", by Vivian Li, The Pudding (March, 2025) For many, our first memories of learning animal sounds include the song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” The song has been translated into at least 25 languages, and a curious finding […]

A contributor to one of the series I oversee wrote to me as follows: As always, feel free to edit as you see fit, and to use my name or not, depending on context. ("Mox nix" as the GIs like to say in Germany, showing off their German.)    Although I had never seen "mox nix" written […]

About a week ago, I was composing New Year's greetings for friends: Akemashiteomedetō gozaimasu 明けましておめでとう御座います "Happy New Year" Sin-nî-khuài-lo̍k 新年快樂！Xīnnián kuàilè! Kung Hei Fat Choi! Шинэ оны мэнд хүргэе! Felix sit annus novus! When I got to the Latin, I was puzzled by whether I should leave "sit" in there or get rid of it.  I […]

Things are happening very fast with this "experimental" internet search tool.  I realize that it is a new technology, so naturally there are bugs and kinks that have to be worked out, and I don't want to be too harsh with it.  Moreover, at a certain level, it is already serving a yeomanly purpose. For instance, […]

Justin Weinberg, "Analytic Philosophy's Best Unintentional (?) Self-Parodying", Daily Nous 9/6/2024: “Someone, let’s say a baby, is born; his parents call him by a certain name.” That line–recently circulated on social media by Eric Winsberg (South Florida / Cambridge) as “the funniest sentence in the history of philosophy”—is from Saul Kripke‘s Naming and Necessity. I’m […]