August 5, 2010
“MOST people regard grammar books and dictionaries as a codified set of rules prescribing dos and don’ts. For professional scholars of language, though, they are more like history books. Languages are constantly in flux, but it takes a rather long view to show just what a contingent and transitory thing a language can be at any point in time. Ruth Sanders, a professor of German Studies at Miami University in Ohio, takes just such a view in her new book, telling the millennia-long story of German and how it got that way…“
July 29, 2010
This is pleasingly official-looking: the book now has a page at RandomHouse.com. And the cover is now for all the world to see.
“To move between accents and dialects is part of human language behavior. But to me it seems poignantly and particularly American, with physical movement and social aspiration so big part of the national story. An American can be someone who says y’all come back or foath floah, or, just as easily, someone who has tried them both and more…“
June 15, 2010
My newest project: a revival of The Economist’s 1990s column, Johnson, now in blog form, to discuss language in all its glory.
June 8, 2010
“Why do people keep calling Elena Kagan a ‘blank slate’? … If you really consciously choose a metaphor, pick it up off that shelf and swing it a few times saying ‘yes, this one’, and then use it over and over, it had better be a good one…“
May 11, 2010
“Could Chinese gradually assume English’s role as the world’s language of wider communication? I’ll venture a prediction: No. Not as long as Chinese is written in traditional Chinese characters…“
May 8, 2010
“Britain’s election has produced a hung parliament, a glum name that reflects the feelings of many Brits about the inconclusive results. Now will begin an unusual process of negotiation between the parties, a prospect many Brits don’t relish. But what Britain dreads is the happy norm in many other European countries, and the election has revived a conversation that has been dormant for a long time in the country: electoral reform…“
May 5, 2010
A new feature on The Economist’s website lets me plug a few of my favorite books on language.
May 1, 2010
“When 18 of 20 people use a phrase incorrectly, it’s safe to say that the language has simply moved on. No amount of insisting on an old usage will ever bring it back. As a student of language, I find this process fascinating, and I don’t get too attached to any given word or phrase…Yet I find myself clinging to the original meaning of ‘begging the question’. This is because it’s terrifyingly useful…”