Category Archives: language

in the Hellenistic age, savage warfare— no, that’s not it

Bill Poser at Language Log agrees with me: Greek, not Latin, ought to have been spoken in The Passion. (Cited by Prentiss Riddle in a comment at languagehat.)

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serial or parallel?

Shiny! (before Firefly)

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words

One often hears mention of “the greater Boston area”. So how come you never hear of “the lesser Boston area”? In unrelated news, I misread the headline “Satire is dead” as “[William] Safire is dead” and wondered why Charlie would … Continue reading

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practicum

At a Thai restaurant just now, the staff were playing Scrabble. That’s one way to practice a language!

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To Live

I bought a DVD of Kurosawa’s 生きる Ikiru, inferring from the presence of English text on the package that the show would be subtitled. Oops!

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i hate when that happens

Larry Trask, a well of linguistic erudition and good humor, has died.

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bookmark

Bloggy goodness at Languagehat.

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