As the holidays approach, I’m sharing a little linguistic trivia related to the traditional Christmas song, “Deck the Halls,” courtesy of Jessica Strasbaugh at Oxford Dictionaries. You might wonder, when singing this carol, what exactly we are doing to the halls when we deck them with boughs of holly. (I, at least, would as a child confusedly imagine a…
Learn a little something about language humor at Much Reading. Wow. over at The American Scholar. Jessica Love explains the linguistic humor of the doge memes. Like the ones shown here. Happy Friday!
In honor of those folks preparing for thanksgiving feasts in the US, I’d like to share the food prep timeline created by the writer at Ideas Illustrated. Enjoy consuming the results of all that logistically complex labor!
Check it out. The Center for Plain Language just released this 2013 report card for plain writing done by federal agencies. Details are available from their website. Two related media articles appear below. Sure makes me wonder what’s different in the USDA (Dept of Agriculture) and the DOL (Dept of Labor). Related articles The Worst…
I’ve written about malapropisms before. If you want a diversion that involves word play with malapropisms today, try this game from Oxford Dictionaries. Example: The muscles around the stomach are known as the abominable muscles. Answer: Abdominal (‘abominable’ means ‘detestable’). A prospectus is someone who searches for gold. After a long air flight, it is reassuring to get your feet back…
In case any of you are wondering where the phrase originated today . . .
I am a linguist who studies workplace language. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to explain that I don’t speak lots of languages. (The fact that I wish I had learned to earlier in life is a separate issue altogether.)That definition of a linguist is used almost exclusively within government, especially in…
I’ve said before that advice to ban the passive voice counts as a platitude. A recently published study corroborates my point. The authors of that study wrote, [Advice to ban the passive voice] implies that the active and passive voice can be used interchangeably and, where grammatically possible, the active voice should always be favoured. Their results show…
This 4-minute TED Talk explains how the lack of “sh”explains why we use the letter X to mean “the unknown.” You know like Planet X. X-ray. Gen-X. X-Men. X-rated. Cheers!
I’m guessing many of you don’t understand how a dictionary is created. It’s true of the vast majority of people — even highly literate ones. So here’s your chance to get educated about lexicography. That means dictionary-making. The misconception that dictionaries are authorities on language is pandemic. John McIntyre’s piece”You Could Look It Up” appeared…