Medieval and modern images of the Tower of Babel.
Esssse and other uncommon multiple letters.
How we structure the world for language production.
A dislike of deplane.
Chairperson and English lexiculture.
Grey parrots do not always ‘parrot’ [PDF, 448 KB].
Words are like strings that I pull out of my mouth.
Troubles translating The Second Sex.
Did Manute Bol really coin “My bad“?
North American English dialect survey.
The rapid pejoration of douchebag.
Computer term etymologies.
New entries in the OED; observations from Susan Purcell.
When carrots become popular orange vegetables.
The daily lexeme.
“Fuking shibal.” How to swear in English, in Korean.
Sentence first 
Another great list there, Stan. I found the psycholinguistic article particularly interesting, learning another language as I am right now.
As far as swearing in Korean is concerned, the word for eighteen is very similar to one of their strongest swears. It’s amazing what deliberate faux pas you can get away with in another language. :p
I will never again call someone a douchebag. Not that I ever have in the first place. But when your eyes are opened to the origin of a slang word you simply took for granted it changes your perception. What other slang words have I used without understanding the full implications?
Glad you enjoyed them, Tim. I’ve never used douchebag either. Despite Irish people’s fondness for many American expressions, it hasn’t really caught on here — at least not to my knowledge.
Oh that “Deplane” post had me chortling. Every single time I hear it (and I fly frequently) I think of Herve from Fantasy Island: “De Plane, Boss, De Plane!”
XO
WWW
Apropos carrots being called popular orange vegetables, this is as much as a shock because they were originally this colour.
And I had never before your post today heard ‘de-plane’. Urggghhh! What a horrible expression/word.
:(
I wrote some stuff last night in my blog combinations of words… maybe you’d like to suggest a few there yourself?
Val
WWW: It’s a funny post. Deplane might have its problems, but I don’t strongly object to the word. Would you believe I’ve never seen Fantasy Island? There are vast gaps in my television-watching history. But I found a clip on YouTube, so I know what you’re talking about.
‘Purple, white and yellow carrots were imported to southern Europe in the 14th century. Black, red and white carrots were also grown.’
absurdoldbird: Wonderful – thank you for the link! It has made me want to try a maroon carrot, to say nothing of the other colours. I love beetroot, which probably helps. Thanks for the invitation, too. I’ll visit your blog when I can; work deadlines have greatly but temporarily restricted my blogging and blog-visiting hours.
Each link once again a gem of its own, Stan. Thank you.
When today parking the car near the market, opening the door suddenly I asked myself: Am I decaring now. Or more precisely: degolfing?
Well, and as you could tell I would not water our carrots these days. I do water our popular orange vegetables. Even an extra portion they got this evening.
Right now – 01:14 a.m. we do have 28°C.
A hot peace of the night then.
That’s quite a temperature for the small hours, Sean! I’m sure your popular orange vegetables will appreciate the vital colourless liquid with which (and to which) you treated them.
Decaring and degolfing are both fine coinages, but they have additional connotations (at least for me) that you might want to watch out for. Decaring suggests de-care-ing; this isn’t a real word, but if it were it would mean “deciding not to care”. Degolfing suggests giving up golf, which I fully support (the giving up, not the golf). To avoid ambiguity I recommend doing these things simultaneously: not caring as you de-car, and exiting your Golf as you quit the ‘game’.