As well as all sports fans and/or language enthusiasts, I present to you a compilation of language-related Super Bowl XLVI links.Macmillan Dictionary the Super Bowl - definition Wordnik Word Soup-er BowlThe Wall Street Journal Words With GiantsThe Wall Street Journal…

Nuckin FutsLanguage Log recently brought to my attention a newly trademarked (and Spoonerismized?) Australian snack food called Nuckin Futs.What I found equally and complementary humorous was that a day or so later Cowbells at tumblr posted the following picture.…

quadrisyllabic Having four syllables. A word such as dictatorship is thus a quadrisyllable.quantifier floating Proposed syntactic process by which a quantifier is detached from its phrase. E.g. in Birds can all fly, the quantifier all is seen as having 'floated'…

My teenage boys have a new favorite condiment - Sriracha Chili Sauce.I was unsure about the standard pronunciation, so I looked it up and came across a New York Times article titled "A Chili Sauce to Crow About ".The pronunciation,…

boy, n.Forgive me for the post title; I am addicted to amusing alliterations.Image via Facebook (origin unknown). Thanks to my friend Colleen for sharing.…

pandialectal A term used primarily in dialectology and sociolinguistics to characterize any linguistic feature, rule, etc., which is applicable to all the dialects of a language.paronymy A term sometimes used in semantic analysis to refer to the relationship between words…

Why Study Linguistics? - An informative slideshow produced by the Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies.50 Years of Linguistics at MIT - A link to 11 MIT linguistics lectures.Dyslexie, A Typeface Designed To Help Dyslexics Read - A video…

obligatory (Element) that cannot be deleted from a syntactic or other structure. E.g. in She left quickly, neither the subject (She) nor the verb (left) can be removed from the construction: cf. She quickly, Left quickly. Therefore both are obligatory.…

Love these Useless Mutants.…

In a post last year I referenced an article in the New York Times that explained the acronym-based etymology of the word Captcha and told how entering a Captcha code helps transform old articles and books into computer text files.One…

Lord knows the difference between further and farther has been covered on the internet too many times to count, but if a ballpark number helps to illustrate, consider the following google results:"difference between further and farther" About 14,900,000 results (0.23…

natural-kind terms In the semantic analysis of nouns, a type of general term for entities which have an identity in nature (as opposed to artefactual, abstract and other general terms). They include some sortal terms (e.g. lion), where a notion…

We are little airy creatures,All of different voice and features:One of us in glass is set,One of us you’ll find in jet,T’other you may see in tin,And the fourth a box within;If the fifth you should pursue,It can never fly…

Please check out Lew and Paul's Linguistics and Sports page (link at right).The page includes items that will be of interest to both sports enthusiasts and language lovers. Image from SodaHead.com…

/hæpi: nu:w jɪər/Hope you all enjoyed your holidays.…

Clipping, back-formation, and affixing, that is.Clipping is a word creation process that takes a historically, multi-syllabic word and removes one or more syllables to form a smaller word. Some examples are: ad from advertisement, gas from gasoline, phone from telephone,…

mand An utterance by which a speaker tries to get an addressee to do something: thus a command, demand, request, etc.Mande Family of languages in West Africa, centred on the west of Guinea and adjoining parts of Mali, Ivory Coast,…

One of the currently-popular memes adored by language fans involves a spin on "a man walked into a bar" jokes. Of course, I could not resist adding my linguistically-inspired contributions to the meme.1. A phoneme walks into a /bɑ:r/ because…

"Understanding Language Through Humor" by Stanley Dubinsky and Chris Holcombʌ ʌ (2 carets up)This is the perfect book for anyone who wants to learn more about the inner workings of language while being entertained at the same time. I would…

"Do You Make These Mistakes in English? The Story of Sherwin Cody's Famous Language School" by Edwin L. Battistellaʌv (1 caret up, 1 caret down)A book for individuals who are curious about English language education and marketing, and how these…

Two of my favorite language-related illustrations. From the book Shapes for sounds by Timothy Donaldson, via brain pickings. From an article in The Economist, illustration by W. Vasconcelos.I think the illustrations complement each other quite nicely. My compliments to the…

"The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman" by Meg Wolitzerʌ ʌ (2 carets up)What a wonderful book for young readers. Whether interested in language or not, this is an enjoyable book and I'll bet anyone who reads it will discover a new…

langage A French term introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure to refer to the human biological faculty of speech. It is distinguished in his approach from langue, the language system of a speech community.listeme A term occasionally used in psycholinguistics for…

The comma is not truly the only punctuation tool you will ever need, but it sure does do a lot.The Purdue Online Writing Guide lists the following uses in its Quick Guide to Commas:1. Use commas to separate independent clauses…

Would you have a hard time distinguishing the source of a fast food chicken sandwich if a t-shirt company trademarked a phrase used on their t-shirts that promotes sustainable food?In other words, if you saw this:Would you think this:Or this:The…

I want to bring attention to a portion of December 1st's post titled Words: Winning, Losing, Fighting and Banned in 2011. Some of you may have missed it because it was "below the fold". Here it is -FightingYUUUPDave Hester of…

Last week I saw the movie “Hot Coffee” and was pleasantly surprised that George Lakoff made a couple of appearances. It was a very entertaining, informative and thought-provoking documentary with plenty of discussion about the role language plays in the…

kinaesthesis The sensation of movements in one's own body. Hence a major element in practical phonetics, in sensinge.g. how a consonant is articulated.kinesics The study of meaningful gestures and other body movements in communication. Originally of a treatment modelled on…

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WinningDictionary.com's Word of the Yeartergiversate /tɚʤIvɚseɪt/To change repeatedly one’s attitude or opinions with respect to a cause, subject, etc.; equivocate.Runners-up -zugzwangA situation in chess in which a player is limited to moves that cost pieces or have a damaging positional…

onomatopoeia1: the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (as buzz, hiss)2: the use of words whose sound suggests the senseLate Latin, from Greek onomatopoiia, from onomat-, onoma name + poiein…