“The Baqdadi Goldsmith” by Kamal-ol-molk / Wikimedia Commons
I’m reading a guidebook about Ethiopia (preparing for a trip there later in the year), and I’ve just stumbled on this really interesting piece by John Grinling called “Wax and gold in goldsmithery and Amharigna.” It’s a good read for anyone interested in words and language, and perhaps helps explain why I love Ethiopian culture. Continue reading
In recent language, spelling and grammar news: bad spelling at the races; a CIA grammatical blunder; how not to teach grammar; a school changes its name from a bad pun; and more … Continue reading
My English friend Fleur recently told me in an email that she wasn’t going to an event because “it really isn’t my pigeon.” I’ve never heard this little avian saying before, and since Glosso has recently posted a piece about expressions using animal (ahem) parts, I was immediately intrigued … Continue reading
In recent language news: a trilingual pop artist, singing trilingually; a dating trend gets a trendy name; a capital city changes its name; a typeface makeover; and more … Continue reading
Recent stories in the news about words, grammar, and language — with an emphasis this month on grammar, and a couple of politicians getting themselves into hot water with their words … Continue reading
Here’s the second in Glosso’s mini-series about “extra-curricular” speech phrases, habits and social cues that add nuance and extra clues to what we’re actually saying. Let’s look at fillers. What’s your – er – filler? Is it “uh”, “um”, “like”, or “OK”? We all use them — don’t kid yourself if you think you don’t. But do these bad boys really deserve the poor reputation they carry around with them? You might be surprised to discover some of the good stuff they offer. Continue reading
Go on: take a guess (and don’t Google it). You might be surprised by what connects these three words: pajamas, dinghy and shampoo. Continue reading
UPDATE, Nov 5: see a new entry – cock-up – below, brought to Glosso’s attention on our Facebook page.
~~~
The world of journalism is changing — fast. Not just in terms of who is writing (or no longer writing) about what on which platform or outlet: it’s how and by what means the words travel logistically from the writer’s mind to the reader’s eye. And along with that shifting means of transport comes a whole new constantly-changing language. Let’s take a nostalgic journey back to the old-fashioned days of journalism when red pens, paper galleys, metal rules, fax and telex machines, telephones and glue sticks ruled the newsroom. Some of the old jargon from that time still floats around today, but mainly only in the dusty minds of us old scribes and subs … Continue reading
Dripos, in Aussie speak
English is littered with diminutives — commonly abbreviated words — in standard usage. Phone, bike, fridge, gym, typo, photo: they’re all diminutives* in that sense. Sometimes we add a suffix after butchering a word to give it an even more informal feel: think comfy (comfortable), cardie (cardigan), telly (television), and even brolly (umbrella). OK, admittedly those are all British colloquialisms: we Brits [see?] are more prone than our neighbors across the pond to add weeny appendages back in once we’ve sliced off the fatty syllables. (And see Glosso’s earlier post: “I’ll take that with a side of small words.“) But wait: there’s a country that’s even more inclined to hypocorism (yes, that’s what it’s called) than English-speakers on either side of the Atlantic. G’day Aussies! Continue reading
That’s a line out of Manhunt: Unabomber, the gripping new(ish) TV series about how a notorious serial killer was tracked down and apprehended, largely thanks to the relatively young science known as “forensic linguistics.” If you want to know what forensic linguistics is all about, watch this series. (And read Glossophilia’s earlier post about another famous crime in which this particular form of detective work played an important role.) For a quick taster of the series, and to see how linguistics came into the crime in question, watch the video clip below to discover how a common proverb was the key to cracking the case of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Which proverb was it, and how did its history help the FBI to solve the case? Continue reading