tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59059402024-10-05T03:58:39.203+02:00WordPundit is a blog relating to the world's languages and to the written word.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-83292544093065895142021-03-16T17:43:00.001+01:002021-03-16T17:43:42.072+01:00

What a superb article by Peggy Noonan at the Wall Street Journal (WSJ)at Why We Care About the Royal Family Feud.Noonan's "performativity"-centered discussion about the British Monarchy has had a special bonus for us, by opening up a new way of thinking about human communication and interaction in the form of "speech acts", which analysis also provides an unexpected connection to "critical legal

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-51309999170182595722015-05-29T15:30:00.001+02:002015-05-29T15:30:50.081+02:00

Hashtag is the Children's Word of the Year according to a story at BBC News.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-86501684760258762022014-02-03T18:14:00.001+01:002014-02-03T18:14:26.810+01:00

We continue to maintain that legislatures around the world should pass simple laws imposing draconian licensing fees on companies that are stealing OUR major "public" generic words -- and the goodwill associated with them -- for nothing, while shamelessly suing others for allegedly imitating their far less important so-called "inventions", like rubber-band bounce-back patents granted by a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-61208634602064631932013-10-11T19:19:00.001+02:002013-10-11T19:19:26.884+02:00

See Blawgletter® at The Tao of a Fab Vocab.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-89312081808839407322013-09-27T17:05:00.001+02:002013-09-27T17:05:55.387+02:00

See Kate Manning at The Lost Slumgullions of English.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-16473414949891754472013-09-26T19:02:00.001+02:002013-09-26T19:02:47.684+02:00

How Do You Say ‘Blog’ in German? - NYTimes.com

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-5133853367290832252012-05-31T11:39:00.004+02:002012-05-31T11:39:42.578+02:00

At the New Yorker, Ryan Bloom at Language Wars in Inescapably, You're Judged by Your Language, tells us that prescriptive English is the language of people in power: "Repugnant as it may be, the simple answer is that we need to learn prescriptive English because that’s the way the people in power communicate. As far as daily survival is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether the origins of

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-60065385948384241072012-03-25T22:04:00.001+02:002012-05-18T11:44:16.754+02:00

Ancient Signs: The Alphabet and the Origins of Writing by Andis Kaulins is now available in 4 versions (b/w, color, and both of those also as ebooks) at http://www.epubli.com/shop/autor/Andis-Kaulins/3682. In Ancient Signs, the author traces the origins of writing and the alphabet to syllabic writing systems in ancient cultures and shows that these have one common origin. print b/w version

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-10702192511149413862011-01-08T20:18:00.000+01:002011-01-08T20:18:18.245+01:00

Sean D. Hamill at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes that the American Dialect Society has selected its word word of the year 2010: "app" it is.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-15334541379648965622010-11-18T15:19:00.000+01:002010-11-18T15:19:08.904+01:00

 We got this from the Oxford University Press: "Word lovers, you’ve been waiting 12 long months for Oxford to announce the new Word of the Year, and it’s REFUDIATE! An unquestionable buzzmaker in 2010, the word refudiate instantly evokes the name of Sarah Palin, who tweeted her way into a flurry of media activity when she used the word in certain statements posted on Twitter. Critics

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-82418776593449452842010-09-10T18:24:00.000+02:002010-09-10T18:24:45.194+02:00

On Words | Brain Pickings: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-53144146849696333022010-08-20T22:29:00.000+02:002010-08-20T22:29:47.158+02:00

World Wide Words: Bafflegab: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-57386116775208099662010-02-02T10:59:00.000+01:002010-02-02T10:59:42.743+01:00

Concision is discussed at The Smart Set in A Brief History by Ryan Bigge"Ours is not the first society to value an economy of words.Less is more.Omit needless words.Brevity is the soul of wit.Offer very little information about yourself."Read the rest about concision here.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-629924740275135052009-08-11T18:49:00.000+02:002009-08-11T18:50:31.126+02:00

Words. Words. Words.Google Books has a special page for Legal Analysis relating to Google Books and copyright law.Our photo shows the sculpture "The Word" at Groote Markt, the marketplace in Sint-Niklaas, capital of Waasland, Flanders, Belgium,the largest such marketplace in the country:Google Books is a wonderful information resource which can assist greatly in determining whether to buy a book

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-43606689430327332442007-08-24T01:45:00.000+02:002007-08-24T01:52:06.253+02:00

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing (Podcast)Russell Frank's blog Spankly FreakingAway With Words and WordworkingDave BrondsemaThe Wunder Blog and their Daily Bug posting titledBalking TackwardsVKpediaThe Grumpy Old Man has some Pedantic Moans in this direction and gives a nice list of SpoonerismsGoonerisms Spalore! has a list (Parental Guidance recommended)Joho the Blog has an

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-46686972504204296302007-08-23T16:29:00.000+02:002007-08-23T16:35:01.254+02:00

Um ... er .... ah. Having trouble speaking or writing? Do you suffer from lips of the stung? Do you sometimes write there for their? You are not a loan. The process of communication by words is beset with surprising linguistic obstacles.Micheal Erard is "a journalist who writes mainly about language at the intersection of technology, policy, law, and science." He has a new book out Um...: Slips,

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-34101464794928517522007-01-22T23:44:00.000+01:002007-01-22T23:45:31.792+01:00

The following is our book review of Jim O'Donnell's book, Wordgloss : A Cultural Lexicon , which we have reviewed at Amazon.co.uk:"Was this the wish of the Demiurge? Boston to Washington DC is a conurbation! Cui bono?! Do we live in a lexical dystopia awaiting a thaumaturgic gloss revival? Who today knows that "pleonasms are tautologous and should be avoided"? Errata need not be repetitive - a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-1163951949938263122006-11-19T16:59:00.000+01:002006-11-19T17:11:19.380+01:00

Charles McGrath in his exceptional New York Times article Word Freak, informs us about the remarkable poetry of Paul Muldoon. McGrath writes:"Just about everyone except Muldoon thinks his poetry is often difficult. When I suggested to him once that his work is sometimes hard to follow, he shook his head and seemed almost offended. “I’m not all that keen on the idea that every poem should be full

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-1136913295751658412006-01-10T18:01:00.000+01:002006-01-11T12:06:42.913+01:00

Dana Sanchez at The Herald in Bradenton, Manatee and Sarasota, Florida (thank you Bradentonians for this tip) has an article "Using a language that works: Jargon makes the business world go round", reviewing a book documenting business jargon, written by auto salvage magnate Ron Sturgeon and entitled "Green Weenies and Due Diligence". It is an education..

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-1136910831421018432006-01-10T17:32:00.000+01:002006-01-10T17:33:51.433+01:00

Well, we have said it along about the humanities, and now it has hit the world in general.Via email from Bradenton, Florida (thank you) containing snips of articles in The Herald, we discover that The American Dialect Society (ADS) in its 16th annual words of the year vote, has chosen "truthiness" as the Word of the Year 2005, i.e. as the word best reflecting the year 2005. According to the ADS:"

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-1125535466704204732005-09-01T02:34:00.000+02:002005-09-01T02:44:26.710+02:00

WebCorp is part of a linguistic search engine developed by The Research and Development Unit for English Studies (RDUES).RDUES, "based in the School of English at UCE Birmingham, is a small team of corpus linguists, software engineers and statisticians. We carry out applied research in corpus linguistics, developing new descriptions of the language in use and tools for the extraction and

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-1098038664349809322004-10-17T20:44:00.000+02:002004-10-17T20:49:20.376+02:00

Word Magazine - Entertainment and Music Via Blognor Regis: "I read every issue of the music monthy Q Magazine from January 1990 through to this spring when I'd finally had enough of the constant top 100 this, that and the other polls. I'm not sure whether I've outgrown the magazine or whether the magazine has gone downhill. I think the latter because the editors of Q back in the day, Mark Ellen

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-1084014020617702332004-05-08T13:00:00.000+02:002004-05-08T13:04:50.030+02:00

Working With Words - Blog The blog Working With Words carries the following description: "A weblog devoted to spurring a conversation among those who use words to varying degrees in their daily work. Hosted by John Ettorre, a Cleveland-based writer and editor...." This blog is a great addition to any blog roll for its postings on the literary world of writing and reporting. We would, however,

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-1076074863912355782004-02-06T14:41:00.000+01:002004-03-11T13:35:14.090+01:00

The blog Kuro5hin has a posting by rtmyers entitled Introduction to Tibetan Orthography, showing the problems which are raised by convoluted systems of word orthography but also being a nice discussion of Tibetan, including its relation to Sanskrit.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5905940.post-1075561035186176892004-01-31T15:57:00.000+01:002004-01-31T16:01:56.780+01:00

Finally, a tool to end all disputes about whether a Scrabble ® word is legal or illegal and whether the dictionary being used is the right one or not. Go to The Scrabble Rack. Plug in a word. The column (frame) at the right tells you whether the word is legal or illegal.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0