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Hand Language Could this be the reason Michiganders talk with their hands so frequently?Thank you Mike Ridley - musician, comedian and friend.… |
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Unusual Words Defined: A – Z (Part Z) A continuation of the series.zymurgy zymurgy refers to the art or practice of fermentation. Unsurprisingly, it is best known within the fields of winemaking and brewing. The journal of the American Homebrewers Association has that title and its readers… |
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Linguistic Cartoon Favorites: I Think I Feel an Onomatopoeia Coming On I absolutely love this cartoon that a reader recently shared with me. Thank you again CK.… |
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This is How They Verb Nouns Seems to me that verbing of nouns has become one of the more popular methods of word creation these days. In linguistics this is called a functional shift. Here is an example from a billboard on I-75 in Michigan that… |
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Unusual Words Defined: A – Z (Part Y) A continuation of the series.yardangA yardang is a Streamlined hill carved from bedrock or any consolidated or semiconsolidated material by the dual action of wind abrasion, dust and sand, and deflation. Yardangs are elongate features typically three or… |
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An Animated Steven Pinker After seeing the Steven Pinker lecture I posted a few weeks ago, a reader shared this RSA Animate version of Pinker's "Language as a Window into Human Nature".RSA is the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce… |
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The Opposite of the Tip of the Tongue And, no, I am not talking about the root of the tongue. I am referring to the linguistic phenomenon called "tip of the tongue syndrome" or TOT.TOT is the name that is used to describe the phenomenon of knowing that… |
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Unusual Words Defined: A – Z (Part X) A continuation of the series.xeroxlore(ZEE.roks.lohr)n. A modern form of folklore in which anecdotes, lists, jokes, sayings, and urban myths are propagated via photocopied documents. Also: xerox-lore.Example Citation:When the photocopier (or Xerox) entered offices in the '60s, people seized… |
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Olay’s Lame Word Choice You may have seen this ad for Olay Body Collection products in a recent weekly magazine. I was immediately struck by the odd choice of words in the copy of the advertisement.Here is a closer view of the specific words… |
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Stretching Snowmen Spotted this on Arnold Zwicky's Blog a week or so ago and I couldn't resist sharing.Zwicky points out that, "human and snowman aren’t really parallel, historically, morphologically, or prosodically", but I still thoroughly enjoyed the analogy even if… |
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Unusual Words Defined: A – Z (Part W) A continuation of the serieswhilomwhilom\HWAHY-luhm\adjective;1. Former; erstwhileadverb;1. At one timeAccording to Etymonline.com:The definition "at time past" is considered archaic and dates to the 1200's. It comes from Old English hwilum ("at times"), which is the dative case of… |
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Jeopardy Answers (Questions) Here are the answers (questions) and episode credits from this week's Jeopardy challange:Monday -#3168, aired 1998-05-13FRENCH GRAMMAR $200: "Tu" is the singular & familiar form of "you"; this is the plural & polite form.What is Vous?Tuesday -#2893, aired 1997-03-12LINGUISTICS $400:… |
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Final Jeopardy And the Final Jeopardy Category is: LanguagesThe clue: What the Dalmatian, Gothic & Babylonian languages have in common. For those participating in the week-long Jeopardy event, you do not need to place a Final Jeopardy wager but you do need… |
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Linguistics on Jeopardy – $1,000 In honor of the special Jeopardy tournament this week, I have decided to do a daily post with past Jeopardy clues related to language and linguistics.The category: Foreign LanguageThe $1000 clue: "Once a jolly swagman camped by" this, Australian for… |
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Linguistics on Jeopardy – $800 In honor of the special Jeopardy tournament this week, I have decided to do a daily post with past Jeopardy clues related to language and linguistics.The category: Nonce WordsThe $800 clue: Akin to a dumpster diver, a freegan is an… |
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Linguistics on Jeopardy – $600 In honor of the special Jeopardy tournament this week, I have decided to do a daily post with past Jeopardy clues related to language and linguistics.The category: HomonymsThe $600 clue: It can be your best buddy, or the chopped bait… |
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Linguistics on Jeopardy – $400 In honor of the special Jeopardy tournament this week, I have decided to do a daily post with past Jeopardy clues related to language and linguistics.The category: LinguisticsThe $400 clue: These systems of communication that use the hands can be… |
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Linguistics on Jeopardy – $200 In honor of the special Jeopardy tournament this week, I have decided to do a daily post with past Jeopardy clues related to language and linguistics.The category: French GrammarThe $200 clue: "Tu" is the singular & familiar form of "you";… |
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An Excellent Introduction to Steven Pinker For those who may not have heard of Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist and linguist who currently teaches at Harvard, and for those who may not have seen this lecture based on his outstanding book The Stuff of Thought, here… |
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A Speeding Spoonerism Driving on I-75 North in Michigan recently, I passed an SUV with a large rear-window sticker that included the text (without image) seen below.My first thought was that the SUV must belong to a psychiatrist with a sense of humor… |
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Unusual Words Defined: A – Z (Part V) A continuation of the seriesvi·tu·per·atev. vi·tu·per·at·ed, vi·tu·per·at·ing, vi·tu·per·atesv.tr.To rebuke or criticize harshly or abusively; berate.v.intr.To use harshly abusive language; rail.He certainly is more of a vituperator than a considerator.Bonus Word: Con`sid´er`a`torn.1.One who considers.Definitions from thefreedictionary.comImage credits here… |
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Unusual Words Defined: A – Z (Part V) A continuation of the seriesvi·tu·per·atev. vi·tu·per·at·ed, vi·tu·per·at·ing, vi·tu·per·atesv.tr.To rebuke or criticize harshly or abusively; berate.v.intr.To use harshly abusive language; rail.He certainly is more of a vituperator than a considerator.Bonus Word: Con`sid´er`a`torn.1.One who considers.Definitions from thefreedictionary.comImage credits here… |
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Linguistics on Jeopardy – February 2011 The category: GRAMMARThe $1600 clue: As well as altering a word to change its number, tense, etc., it can mean altering your tone of voice.The answer: InflectionClue from Jeopardy episode #5131, aired 2006-12-25… |
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Alphabet Soup: Comparing Alphabets Not all alphabets contain 26 letters. Here are several comparisons that have like and/or similar characters to the English alphabet(shown above).The Swedish Alphabet - 28The Russian Alphabet - 33The Welsh Alphabet - 28The Polish Alphabet - … |
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Unusual Words Defined: A – Z (Part U) A continuation of the series.Unexpurgated - Unedited; without deletions.I prefer the unexpurgated edition of the movie; it's longer but more exciting.Definition from Wayne State University's Word Warriors.… |
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Alpine Equipment Epithets I have been meaning to mention a post that appeared on Johnson, The Economists' language blog, and now seems like an appropriate time as we are in the midst of ski season here in Michigan. The post is about the… |
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Actors and Theta Roles Ralph Fiennes in The English PatientPeter Dinlage in The Station AgentErik Estrada in The Final GoalJack Donner in The InstrumentIn Linguistics, referring to the argument structure of a verb is a method for describing the number… |
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Unusual Words Defined: A – Z (Part T) A continuation of the series.tutoyertransitive verb: to address familiarly Origin of TUTOYERFrench, to address with the familiar pronoun tu thou, from Middle French, from tu thou (from Latin) + toi thee, from Latin te (accusative of tu)First Known… |
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A Ventriloquist’s Phonetics Pitch A ventriloquist's performance presents the perfect excuse for introducing some of the subfields of phonetics.Articulatory phonetics: production point of view (rate of vocal fold vibration of the speaker).Acousitc phonetics: transmission point of view (fundamental frequency of sounds as they travel… |
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Correction: Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational Shame on me for posting something without checking the facts first. Back in January of 2009 I received an email that included the results of Washington Post's Mensa Invitational. There were two categories in this "contest" and I wrote one… |
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Update: Linguistics in the News and on Jeopardy In December of last year I posted about the upcoming Jeopardy match that will pit a computer named Watson against two of Jeopardy's winningest contestants ever.Well I just learned that a practice match was held last Thursday, January 13th and… |
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