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Language Log

OMG moments induced by allegro forms in Pekingese

This afternoon I passed by a group of high school kids from China going down the street outside of Williams Hall, the office building in which I work. One of the girls said merrily, "Bur'ao", by which she meant Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) bù zhīdào 不知道 ("[I] don't know").The retroflex final -r is well known [...]

Write new speeches, don't borrow from Hollywood

The Australian minister of transport and infrastructure, Anthony Albanese, recently plunged himself into an embarrassing situation that will probably stain his reputation permanently (see the Daily Mail's coverage here). He delivered a speech in which one passage, a piece of nicely honed rhetoric about the leader of the opposition (the Liberal party), was lifted [...]

The "dance of the p's and b's": truth or noise?

Stanley Fish asks ("Mind Your P’s and B’s: The Digital Humanities and Interpretation", NYT 1/23/2011):[H]ow do the technologies wielded by digital humanities practitioners either facilitate the work of the humanities, as it has been traditionally understood, or bring about an entirely new conception of what work in the humanities can and should be? After a [...]

Prophylactic over-negation

Almost the end of January, and not a single Language Log reader hasn't failed to complain about the lack of over-negation in any of this year's posts. But here's some naughtily nutty negation anyway:"It's not that I don't doubt the sincerity of their desire to protect the talent. And believe it or not, we have the [...]

The running man

Near my hotel on the Pla�a Imperial Tarraco in Tarragona, the indicators to tell pedestrians when they can cross the street have a countdown in seconds to the next green: a minute ticks by, the lights go yellow for the vehicular traffic at 6 seconds, then red at 3 seconds, and finally — 3, 2, [...]

World Wide Words

New online: Plat

Plat has several senses, one of which is of a parcel or plot of cultivated land.

New online: Marmalise

A Liverpool slang term, marmalise, has travelled widely.

New online: Have no truck with

Does the idiom have no truck with have anything to do with vehicles?

New online: Toploftical

Now extinct in English, toploftical once meant high-flown or stuck-up.

The Onion

ABC 9 a.m. EST/8 a.m. CST This Saturday morning, Piers sets out on a quest to find the most-talented person in all of Morgania before sitting down for a chatty, yet in-depth interview with cartoon Rob Lowe.

TV Listings: Piers Morgan: The Animated Adventure

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA—Organizers of the Australian Open canceled the highly anticipated Grand Slam event Wednesday night after admitting they were unable to prevent tennis balls from falling off the underside of the planet and into the sky.

Australian Open Canceled As Tennis Balls Fall Off Bottom Of Earth Into The Sky

A bill introduced by Oklahoma state senator Ralph Shortey would prohibit the use of aborted fetuses in food products.

American Voices: Oklahoma Bill Would Ban Use Of Fetuses In Food

A new law prohibits Kaleidoscoping while driving, Joe Biden advertises guitar lessons on the White House bulletin board, and Romneymania sweeps the nation.