Nathan Rein's Library tagged language →  View Popular

From Chicago's writing program -- a short, sharp analysis of what makes academicese so maddening. Thank you to Louise for posting. The "toy" -- a random sentence generator which actually produces things that sound authentic -- is at http://j.mp/38VtE

writing-program.uchicago.edu/...how.htm - Preview

post:facebook(source) brilliant writing language academe webgoodies

en.wikipedia.org/...Southern_American_English - Preview

language wikipedia u.s._south

You might think this is a strange thing to bookmark. But go to the page and listen, and you'll see the light as well.

en.wikipedia.org/...ccinaucinihilipilification.ogg - Preview

random_sh!t audio words language funny

I just discovered this. It's a wiki "translation" of the bible based on the notion of eradicating "liberal bias" from prior translations (particularly the NIV, I think). (It's not actually a translation in any way, since there is no effort made to look at the original texts. What it really seems to be is a paraphrase of the KJV, modernized and edited for conservative themes.) They are bothered by gender-neutral language primarily, but they also want to expunge "Later-Inserted Liberal Passages," "Express Free Market Parables," "Accept the Logic of Hell," and "Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms." I was looking over their version of Mark. The main "conservative" adjustments seem to be changing "Pharisees" into "Elitists" and "scribes" into "intellectuals." I kid you not. I guess this is "utilizing powerful conservative terms." The ten principles of a "fully conservative translation of the Bible" can be read on another wiki page, here http://j.mp/qxcWz .

conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible - Preview

conservatism religion bible bizarre translation language rhetoric

Comments on George Lakoff and current events from Jabiz Raisdana.

intrepidflame.blogspot.com/...political-mind.html - Preview

!toread politics language commentary progressivism conservatism conservatives philosophy video political_culture cognitive_science

Utah's official "Primer" on "so-called fundamentalist Mormon communities" (where polygamy is sometimes practiced) has been rewritten, apparently so as to avoid offending the polygamists. References to high rates of abuse and violence in plural families have been removed. Women no longer "flee" or "escape", they "elect to leave." References to them as "victims" are gone. And, interestingly, readers are instructed to avoid the word "compound."

www.sltrib.com/ci_13182785 - Preview

lds law utah america news rhetoric language religion pluralism rels327 church_and_state possible_blog_post

A discussion of where the technically erroneous locution "aren't I" might have come from. Very fascinating.

david-crystal.blogspot.com/...on-arent-i.html - Preview

blogclip great_blog_post_example language commentary via:tumblr

thslone.tripod.com/rasta-bibliography.html - Preview

language bibliography reference religion rastafari caribbean resources iterasi via:wikipedia

www.china.org.cn/...83625.htm - Preview

china literature interview fiction communication language

Crowdsourced collective noun-izing. Examples: "a grope of stable boys, a rustle of squirrels, a queue of commuters, a tuple of geeks, a lurch of zombies, a whelming of emails, a clamour of emails, an ambuscade of paparazzi, an abhorrence of vacuum cleaners, a brace of dentists, a block of aspiring writers, a cycle of mormons, a boiler of steampunks, a shelf of librarians, a quibble of geeks, a deployment of jehovah's witnesses, a tangle of chargers, a piteousness of doves"

all-sorts.org - Preview

language words random_sh!t fun cool via:twitter post:facebook(source)

An interesting discussion of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary speech-acts and their various sub-classifications, drawing primarily (but not exclusively) on Austin. Relevant to a discussion of the role of language in ritual acts.

plato.stanford.edu/...assertion - Preview

philosophy language speech religion ritual my_research

"An ongoing project devoted to discovering all the words and everything about them." I tried searching "poetaster" and got a full page of informative results. Seen on @unmodern 's Twitter stream.

www.wordnik.com - Preview

via:twitter language reference cool

Rep. Betty Brown , Republican state representative, to Ramey Ko, discussing the problems posed by voter ID laws for Asian-Americans whose names are often transliterated inconsistently (and who therefore will sometimes find discrepancies between what is printed on state-issued ID documents and on voter rolls): "Well, rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese, as I understand, it's a rather difficult language... Do you think it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?... This is something that would make it a lot easier both for you and poll workers if there was some name you could adopt just for these identification purposes that would be easier for Americans to deal with."

www.kxan.com/...ty_seeks_apology_from_lawmaker - Preview

politics texas language

From the article: "Does treating chairs as masculine and beds as feminine in the grammar make Russian speakers think of chairs as being more like men and beds as more like women in some way?... It turns out that it does. In one study, we asked German and Spanish speakers to describe objects having opposite gender assignment in those two languages. The descriptions they gave differed in a way predicted by grammatical gender."

www.npr.org/...story.php - Preview

science psychology language gender research cool belief cognitive_science !toread via:facebook

www.washingtonpost.com/...A46032-2005Jan3.html - Preview

random_sh!t language commentary

Some research has suggested that babies and young children who spend a lot of time in forward-facing strollers are at a disadvantage when it comes to language development. I remember reading at one point that forward-facing strollers were at one time encouraged (like cribs) as a way of cultivating "independence" in babies. It makes perfect sense to me that if your baby can't see your face, or hear you clearly, then -- at least at very young ages -- that amounts to a kind of "lost" developmental time. This is also why, intuitively, I always felt that slings were the way to go.

www.nytimes.com/...02zeedyk.html - Preview

post:facebook(source) post:tumblr(source) children parenting science language opinion

I was looking up what a voiced palatal plosive might sound like and I ended up here.

en.wikipedia.org/Consonants - Preview

language reference random_sh!t

This page lists 43 verbs with the ending "-ish." Here they are: abolish, accomplish, admonish, astonish, banish, blandish, blemish, brandish, burnish, cherish, demolish, diminish, distinguish, embellish, establish, extinguish, famish, finish, fish, flourish, furbish, furnish, garnish, impoverish, languish, lavish, nourish, perish, polish, publish, punish, ravish, relinquish, relish, replenish, squish, swish, tarnish, vanish, vanquish, varnish, whish, wish.

srufaculty.sru.edu/...ishes.html - Preview

words language random_sh!t

Interesting short piece. Permalink: http://snipr.com/3qo0g

www.nytimes.com/...13beliefs.html - Preview

language religion media journalism commentary belief controversy iterasi opinion

Interesting short piece.

www.nytimes.com/...13beliefs.html - Preview

language religion media journalism commentary belief controversy