Below is a selection of language-related items I’ve enjoyed over the last few weeks – except for the videos at the end, which I haven’t watched yet. A few of the texts are long, but most are short enough to read in a minute or three.
The rapid semantic change of ROFL.
Amazing baroque alphabet at BibliOdyssey.
Let me try and explain this.
How to assemble a thesaurus.
A textual analysis of lipstick names.
It’s all [Greek, etc.] to me.
The Queen’s English is not the Queen’s English.
Sean Connery’s /s/.
Linguistic crafts: cross-stitched pulmonic consonants and vowels.
Is the Texas twang fixin’ to die out?
Whereabouts is or are?
Editing and etiquette.
Funner-er comparative adjectives.
The OED and Robert James’s Medicinal Dictionary 1743–45.
“Would have liked to [verb]” or “Would have liked to have [verb]ed”?
On drunk speech.
Ambiguous roadside syntax.
How do you pronounce lychee?
A talk on literary experimentation in different media.
Using undictionaried words.
A/an historic(al) usage trend (PDF).
Why copy editors matter in scholarly prose.
A linguistics booklet on mistakes (PDF).
False fronts in the language wars.
Videos on the evolution of language, from Evolang IX Kyoto.
These links are great—I especially appreciated the treatise on “an historic” vs “a historic”, since I’m actually a historian (I still use the “h”, personally). And the baroque alphabet is gorgeous. Thank you for sharing these!
You’re very welcome, Madame Weebles – thanks for stopping by and letting me know! We’re fond of “h” in Ireland: we even call it “haitch”. And I agree: the baroque alphabet is stunning.
There are small pockets of people in NYC (where I live) where people of Irish descent still pronounce it “haitch” as well. I love those little holdovers. Unfortunately you rarely hear it these days as those generations are dying out.
I’m glad to say it’s holding strong here. And that reminds me: You might enjoy Frederick Ludowyk’s essay on the ab(h)ominable (h)aitch, featuring among other players some “linguistically subversive Irish nuns”.
This is really interesting! Thank you for sharing
You’re very welcome, Estrella. The next ‘Link love’ installment is due soon.