Since my Because Reasons post, I’ve been collecting examples. I’m sure a search would turn up more, but I’m enjoying collecting them in their native habitats. “well, okay, maybe not the dairy free part, because cheese” This was a sentence fragment from an online messageboard. “I had catastrophic coverage, but no maternity coverage (private insurance […]
Category Archives: Language
The professional hazards of a linguist: Chomsky
One of the professional hazards of being a linguist is being asked what you think of Chomsky.* I never have a good answer because we didn’t actually study Chomsky in school. The linguistics department at Rice does what’s called ‘functional linguistics’, and Chomsky is ‘formal linguistics’. The names have to do with having different opinions […]
Mistaken beliefs about myself: poetry edition
One of the questions that I find myself perennially engaging with is about whether we are the authorities on ourselves, and what epistemic status our knowledge about ourselves has vs. others’ knowledge of us. I was reminded of this when I was out running this morning along the Alameda Ridge and went by one of […]
The problem is that DFW really doesn’t hit the mark
The Urbanophile reprinted a post from the Where Blog (which looks like a neat blog) that caught my attention, since it drew a comparison between language and urban development. I don’t know that much about urban development yet, but it fascinates me, and I do know something about language. The problem is that the something […]
Someone’s ones
I noticed this morning that in a conversation yesterday I used the phrase “some ones that” when I could just as easily have some “some that” (or “ones that”): I bought new gloves some ones from REI that are lobster-claw I was curious to see if this is common. It’s at least common enough that […]
Learning words right and left
I should have known this, but I didn’t: squib is a real English word, with a meaning that lends itself to the metaphorical extension used in the Harry Potter series. Also, rodomontade and enjambment.
When you say “as in”
” ‘With any luck we will be able to ftp some suitable software and get it running on the Tera.’ ‘The Terror?’ ‘Tera. As in Teraflops.’ ‘That does me no good at all. When you say “as in” you are supposed to give me something more familiar to relate it to.’ “ I got a […]
Peevishly honored
I got linked by Arnold Zwicky! The trackback ended up on the first entry in that month, because his link doesn’t lead to the entry itself, but rather to all entries for the month of August, of which that one appears to be first, but is actually the last. In blogging “the last shall be […]
Resumptive pronoun hunt resumed
I haven’t found any new written resumptive pronouns in a while, but I discovered one today on the TinyURL website: Are you posting something that you don’t want people to know what the URL is because it might give away that it’s an affiliate link? Well, if you are, I suggest that you not use […]
Back to happier news
Language Log extols Edinburgh Uni’s results in the UK’s RAE “But with these figures out, even these shy people will have to admit, if pressed, that if you want to study in the biggest language sciences community in the U.K., and the best one as judged by volume of work judged to be of world-leading […]