Category Archives: language

dialect, chronolect

Posted on Friday, 2003 January 10 by Anton

Ken MacLeod’s novel The Sky Road is set at least a few centuries in the future. I once argued that there’s a limit to how far it can be, because the protagonist plays some voice-recordings from our time without mentioning … Continue reading →

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Cogito, ergo non possum dormire

Posted on Tuesday, 2003 January 07 by Anton

The above delightful phrase is the title of a new “mostly political (libertarian), mostly link-hound, mostly for my amusement blog.” Oops! For those of you whose Latin has gone rusty, that means I Think, Therefore I Cannot Sleep.

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who owns the alphabet?

Posted on Tuesday, 2003 January 07 by Anton

Results of searching for each of 26 letters. (Found at Aaron Swartz’s Googlog)

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hwæt!

Posted on Friday, 2003 January 03 by Anton

Hrodulf the Red-Nosed Reindeer: An Original Old English Poem Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor– Næfde þæt nieten unsciende næsðyrlas! Glitenode and gladode godlice nosgrisele. . . . . This came to me by mail some weeks ago, with the funny letters mangled beyond my … Continue reading →

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orthoepy

Posted on Tuesday, 2002 December 24 by Anton

A rant in defense of mis conventional pronunciation (relayed with approval by languagehat): . . . Or were we planning on spending the rest of our lives saying “Paree” for Paris? So to answer your question – no, I think it’s sad … Continue reading →

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Operation Gnashing Butterfly

Posted on Wednesday, 2002 December 18 by Anton

Ftrain Random Military Operation Names Generating Device

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if you do not appease us

Posted on Tuesday, 2002 December 17 by Anton

I heard once that in Sweden or Norway (curse the porosity of my memory) there was an organized campaign to stamp out an offensive second-person pronoun, with buttons proclaiming “I don’t say ___!” Unfortunately, the person who mentioned it did … Continue reading →

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