Here are two entertainment news headlines that are difficult to parse without knowing in advance what they’re reporting on.Ī month ago, I posted an “SOS for DARE,” detailing the impending financial threat faced by the Dictionary of American Regional English, a national treasure of lexicography. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably already seen Business Insider’s “22 Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Totally Differently From Each Other.” But the word everyone has been fixated on is rather light-hearted: argle-bargle.Ībout those dialect maps making the rounds… Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the DOMA decision had some harsh words, to say the least, for the majority opinion. Now I’m starting a new language column for The Wall Street Journal, called “Word on the Street.” Today Wikileaks posted a statement from Edward Snowden, time-stamped Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC.įor the past couple of years I’ve been writing a language column for The Boston Globe (and before that for The New York Times Magazine). Snowden’s United States: singular or plural? Villanueva writes: “I’ve been seeing the old ‘No justice, no peace’ chant lately after the Zimmerman trial.” Rowling wrote the detective novel The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pen name Robert Galbraith. The Sunday (UK) Times recently revealed that J.K. Rowling and “Galbraith”: an authorial analysis In an interview with Talking Points Memo, Barbara Morgan, spokeswoman for New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, called former Weiner intern Olivia Nuzzi all sorts of names after Nuzzi publicly criticized the campaign. I don’t have much to say about the latest tempest in a teapot over the non-literal use of “literally.” On Headsup: The Blog, FEV (Fred Vultee) notes a remarkable confluence of nouns (and one adjective) on the front page of Sunday’s New York Post.įrances Brooke, destroyer of English (not literally) I am a female.” Manning also gave instructions on his-now-her preferred personal pronouns. The first is from the Technology account, celebrating the anniversary of the release of the source code for We the Peopleīradley Manning, just recently sentenced for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, has released a statement announcing, “I am Chelsea Manning. Here are two anniversarial tweets that appeared Friday evening. On Sunday night, Miley Cyrus egregiously “twerked” at MTV’s Video Music Awards, in a performance that quickly became National Conversation #1 (even outpacing Syria). Perfect lexicographical storms don’t come along like this very often. Language Log partners with Lexicon Valley on Slateįor the past year and a half, Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield have been co-hosting the excellent Slate podcast Lexicon Valley, covering many Language Log-friendly topics (and interviewing a few Language Loggers in the process). On the Wall Street Journal’s Emerging Europe blog, Emre Peker reports on a case of linguistic chicanery, with none other than Noam Chomsky as its victim. The phrase “American exceptionalism” has been much in the news ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote an op/ed piece in the New York Times taking issue with President Obama’s statement that America’s foreign policy “makes us exceptional.” “Schwa Fire” ventures into long-form language journalismįor several years now, many linguists and their fellow travelers have talked about the need for a magazine about language issues that could capture the public attention.Īs reported earlier this month by Arnold Zwicky, the world of linguistics lost Ivan Sag after a three-year fight against cancer.ĭid Stalin really coin “American exceptionalism”? US Circuit Judge Denny Chin has ruled in favor of Google in its long-running copyright litigation with the Authors Guild over the scanning and digitization of books.īack in 2008, an image got passed around the blogosphere showing the Singaporean identity card of one Batman bin Suparman. One of the highlights of this weekend’s Saturday Night Live was a “Weekend Update” appearance by Taran Killam playing Jebidiah Atkinson, a 19th-century speech critic.Ī fair-use victory for Google in these United States The interactive dialect quiz on the New York Times website, developed by Josh Katz from Bert Vaux and Scott Golder’s Harvard Dialect Survey, has proved to be immensely popular.Ĭan “-ass” occur predicatively? In the latest episode of “Sam & Cat,” a teen comedy on Nickelodeon, the plot takes a lexicographical turn. The American Dialect Society’s recognition of because as Word of the Year has sparked a number of intriguing linguistic arguments. Subscribe to the feed of his Language Log posts here. Ben Zimmer is a regular contributor to Language Log, a group blog on language and linguistics.
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