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Show Notes
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"Really Old Art" - 22 May 2012
A grab bag of articles contributed to this show, and here they are.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/05/engravings-of-female-genitalia.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gMCyK5oTw8icc-StsTS8yyX0uR_Q?docId=CNG.e2e54aa5b44f9d99e0dc6a6da2435057.5a1
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/archaeologists-in-france-find-what-could-be-oldest-wall-art/story-e6frf7jx-1226355870263
Original article, but paywall:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/05/08/1119663109
Here's some more on Mesopotamian clay tokens.
http://www.ancientscripts.com/cuneiform.html
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"The Persabian Gulf" - 15 May 2012
A quick read from the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17959145
and a really good article from the Washinghton Monthly: "The Agnostic Cartographer".
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.gravois.html
How does Google label the Persian Gulf? It doesn't.
http://g.co/maps/bhehh
It's been called the Persian Gulf for a long time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_naming_dispute
It's weird that conflict would arise between Korea and Japan. Ordinarily they get along so well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Japan_naming_dispute
Barack Obama showed neutrality by referring to the "Malvinas". (Okay, he said "Maldives" but you know.)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/9207183/Barack-Obama-makes-Falklands-gaffe-by-calling-Malvinas-the-Maldives.html
Even Apple had to fight for the iPad's name.
http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/01/ipad-trademark-dispute.html
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"Words With Baboons" - 8 May 2012
The original article in Science (paywall)
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6078/245.abstract
And several good breakdowns (sciency ones first).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120416125245.htm
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/04/12/reading-without-understanding-baboons-can-tell-real-english-words-from-fake-ones/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17676129
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/12/us-usa-baboons-idUSBRE83B1A920120412
Writing's only been around for a short time
http://www.slideshare.net/macloo/clay-tokens-and-the-origin-of-writing
so our brains would have had to use whatever visual and pattern recognition skills were at hand.
Dyslexia may be a failure of visual attention, rather than letter-to-phoneme processing.
http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Baboons-Learn-To-Recognize-Words/story.xhtml?story_id=13000006F4LO
The authors think the apes are processing 'bigrams', or two letters at a time. (PDF)
http://www.unicog.org/publications/DehaeneCohenSigmanVinckier_LCDmodelReading_TICS2005.pdf
But why would that be necessary? Yoav Goldberg can get computer models to do it by assessing probabilities of single letters.
http://www.cs.bgu.ac.il/~yoavg/uni/bloglike/baboons.html
This post by Mark Liberman of Language Log shows how low-frequency letters can push down the probability of a string of letters being an actual word.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3912
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"Passive Voice Day" - 1 May 2012
April 27 was determined to be Passive Voice Day by shaunm on Shaun's Blog.
http://blogs.gnome.org/shaunm/2012/04/25/passive-voice-day-2012/
The move was praised by Language Log, where it was noticed that the passive voice was recognised correctly.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3924
Not everyone gets the passive voice. Strunk and White were early n00bz.
http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497
More recently, US president Barack Obama has been criticised for passive voice
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2010/07/linguists-debate-does-obama-talk-like-a-girl/23834/
by people who don't know what that is.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2422
Grammar Girl's take on the passive is pretty good.
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/active-voice-versus-passive-voice.aspx
Other languages have other voices besides active and passive. Greek has middle voice.
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/docs/UndAncGrkVc.pdf (PDF)
Hey, I was right -- Mongolian (Classic version) is the one that has five voices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_voice
"I prefer the passive-aggressive voice, but whatever it's fine if you ignore me."
http://www.metafilter.com/115358/mistakes-were-not-made#4316169
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"Dying Words (featuring Nick Evans)" - 24 April 2012
About Dr Evans
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/people/personal/evann_ling.php
Link to the book: Dying Words: Endangered Languages and What They Have to Tell Us
http://www.amazon.com/Dying-Words-Endangered-Languages-Language/dp/0631233067
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"Logos" - 17 April 2012
The story.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/world-watching-tobacco-case-roxon/story-e6frg6nf-1226329713805
The UK is watching to see what happens. Also with photos of the new packs!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/17/cigarette-plain-packaging-australia-high-court?newsfeed=true
Geoffrey Robertson QC likes the government's chances
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/business/breaking-news/big-tobacco-will-lose-high-court-fight-says-geoffrey-robertson/story-e6freuyr-1226329650790
Logos deal in colours, shapes, and fonts.
http://creativefan.com/understanding-the-psychology-of-logo-design/
We see a lot of logos a day
http://www.logodesignlove.com/33-logos-in-33-minutes
Logos for big companies have gotten simpler (including the Shell logo I was talking about)
http://www.logoinn.net/case-studies/when-brands-turn-bigger-then-logos-turn-simpler
(and the Apple logo I was talking about)
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/02/07/the-evolution-of-tech-companies-logos/
just like our letters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph
It's possible to identify a little too closely with brands.
http://goodreasonblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/inappropriate-brand-identificaton.html
One study showed that people were more creative when shown an Apple logo (but I wouldn't take this to the bank)
http://gawker.com/374234/apple-logo-makes-you-creative-really
The actual article
GoogleDocs link
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"Fire" - 10 April 2012
The phys.org article:
http://phys.org/news/2012-04-human-ancestors-million-years-archaeologist.html
Some good info about Homo erectus:
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Evol/habiliserectus.html
And the discovery of fire.
http://archaeology.about.com/od/ancientdailylife/qt/fire_control.htm
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"Life Without Numbers (featuring Caleb Everett)" - 3 April 2012
ScienceDaily article
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120221104037.htm
A link to the original article, appearing in Cognitive Science.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01209.x/abstract
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"Uptalk" - 27 March 2012
The New York Times article that attracted my attention:
Young Women Often Trendsetters in Vocal Patterns
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/science/young-women-often-trendsetters-in-vocal-patterns.html?_r=3
Another good article about it from the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/sep/21/referenceandlanguages.mattseaton
Some people call uptalk 'high rising terminals'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal
But they shouldn't.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/002967.html
Some people think uptalk is annoying.
http://www.diresta.com/Services/Does-Uptalk-Make-You-Upchuck/94-40.aspx
(They never think to ask how the rest of us feel about them.)
But some people don't think it's that bad.
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/In-Defense-of-Uptalk-and-Vocal-Fry
It's an Australian thing.
http://linguistlist.org/issues/4/4-686.html#1
No, wait, it's a New Zealand thing.
http://books.google.com.au/books?ei=MiZxT8j3D_HGmQXKrtm6Dw&id=seq3R-NfhLgC&dq=New+Zealand+ways+of+Speaking+English&q=intonation#v=snippet&q=intonation&f=false
George W. Bush used uptalk.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002708.html
Julia Gillard, not so much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qihAbtd9yAo
Language Log is a great place to find out more about this.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=568
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"Carillon Shemozzle" - 20 March 2012
Shemozzle
Peter Costello originally twigged my interest in 'shemozzle'.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/costello-slams-future-fund-shemozzle-20120315-1v494.html
http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/content/2011/s3456038.htm
It comes from Yiddish 'schlemazel'
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=schlemazel
A bit about Yiddish.
http://www.jewfaq.org/yiddish.htm
Lots of English words come from Yiddish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Yiddish_origin
Kerfuffle isn't Yiddish, though.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=kerfuffle
The devil is behind the brouhaha.
http://sesquiotic.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/brouhaha/
They teach Yiddish at UC Santa Cruz.
http://www.cityonahillpress.com/2011/05/12/searching-for-yiddish-land/
Carillon
How do you say 'carillon'? If you read IPA, it's /kəˈrɪljən/ (The 'j' has a 'y' sound.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carillon
It's French.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=carillon
But the spelling of 'Carillon City' does trip up locals from time to time.
http://www.carilloncity.com.au/
Despite the pronunciation, 'carillon' has never had an extra 'i'. At least, not in print to any great extent.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=carillon%2C+carillion&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=5&smoothing=3
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"Sign to Text" - 13 March 2012
A summary:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-technology-language-text-aims-empower.html
U of Aberdeen's page:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/details-11751.php
What is Auslan?
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~waleed/thesis/node18.html
The very useful Auslan Signbank
http://www.auslan.org.au
The "Show and Tell" glove
http://vimeo.com/32568637
http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2012/01/09/this-glove-works-with-an-android-app-to-translate-sign-language-into-text/
Some iPhone apps. These may be a bit dated.
http://atcoalition.org/news/top-10-iphone-apps-people-who-are-deaf-or-hard-hearing
http://atlaak.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/the-10-most-useful-iphone-apps-for-the-deaf/
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"Speech-Jamming Gun" - 6 March 2012
Here's an article:
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/250200/scitech/technology/speech-jamming-gun-developed-by-japanese-reasearchers
This one has pictures:
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/120583-new-speech-jamming-gun-hints-at-dystopian-big-brother-future
Video!
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/03/japanese-speech-jamming-gun/
Here the "reverse-wave" idea, but for buildings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BRYrD1wY5w
And another effort.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2094-silence-machine-zaps-unwanted-noise.html
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"France Bans Mademoiselle" - 28 February 2012
Jezebel is a good place to start
http://jezebel.com/5887397/quite-reasonable-french-government-bans-mademoiselle
Or the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17123531
Ms goes back farther than you'd think.
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1895/
But it took until the 1970s for it to hit print in a big way.
This chart from Google N-Grams compares "Ms Smith" and "Ms Jones", two common surnames.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Ms+Smith%2C+Ms+Jones&year_start=1900&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Why is there an 'r' in Mrs? Cecil explains.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1525/what-does-mrs-stand-for
Etymonline backs it up.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Mrs.
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"Goat Accents" - 21 February 2012
An introductory article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9085654/Goats-can-develop-their-own-accents.html
The story, according to the "60-Second Science" podcast -- with actual goat sounds!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=upbleat-finding-kids-start-to-sound-12-02-15
The actual article (paywall, Elsevier)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347212000401
We've seen animal "accents" before -- here's that silly BBC "cow accents" story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5277090.stm
But it's not so strange to vocalise like your peers. Birds do it.
Google docs link
Whales do it.
http://www.livescience.com/14197-sperm-whale-language-accents.html
Even New Yawkers do it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_dialect#Consonants
But why do we have accents?
http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/accent.cfm
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"The Middle Finger" - 14 February 2012
The story: M.I.A. flips the bird
Short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8ceqCRO-go
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/07/super-bowl-2012-mia-fine?newsfeed=true
http://au.eonline.com/news/ask_the_answer_bitch/mia_in_trouble_super_bowl_bird_flip/292432?cmpid=rss-000000-rssfeed-365-topstories&utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=rss_topstories
NBC and NFL apologise
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1678571/mia-super-bowl-halftime-show-apology.jhtml
Madonna was unhappy about it
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-madonna-mia-idUSTRE8191PX20120210
but she seemed to have no problem with profanity on Letterman in 1994.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_pxJtG4D4g
The dubious "pluck yew" etymology. Did I mention that this is wrong?
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-pluck-yew.htm
Diogenes and Demosthenes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16916263
The epigrammist Martial wrote about the gesture around 86 CE.
http://www.well.com/~aquarius/martial.htm
The actor Pylades, banished from Rome for this gesture
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question32139.html
Caligula (and a good rundown of the above).
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1279/whats-the-origin-of-the-finger
The middle finger has other meanings in Algonquin languages.
What about 'flipping the bird'?
http://www.yaelf.com/questions.shtml
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"Reading thoughts" - 7 February 2012
The news reports are kind of breathless about the whole thing:
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/special-features/mind-reading-breakthrough-is-hailed-by-us-scientists/story-e6frg1ac-1226260246899
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120131175158.htm
but the actual article is much more careful (and much more technical).
That's where I got the sound file of what the brain 'sounds' like.
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001251
Here's the early work from the U of Utah team
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100907071249.htm
What do we think in? More about 'mentalese'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_thought_hypothesis
The algorithm can reconstruct formants. But what's a formant?
http://person2.sol.lu.se/SidneyWood/praate/whatform.html
What if we could detect whether someone was thinking about suicide?
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25171/?mod=related
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"Siri and Speech Recognition, Part 2" - 31 January 2012
Siri remembers relationships
http://www.ipad-transfer.com/articles/siri-tips.html
and is good for answering silly questions.
http://strangetalk.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=111175
Siri has balked at giving good information about abortion providers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-keenan/siri-abortion_b_1125546.html
but Apple says it's just a software glitch.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/12/02/143067993/siris-anti-abortion-tendencies-a-result-of-technology-not-apple-conspiracy
Clifford Nass talks about computer voices and gender.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/female-computer-voices/index.html
He points out that people treat computers like they're people (paywall)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1997.tb00275.x/abstract
There's been an experiment with trivia questions that shows that people are more likely to be swayed by a male voice (but men are slightly less susceptible). (paywall)
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=633461
But if you want Siri to be a guy, here's how to do it:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/10/change-siris-voice-from-female-to-male-and-vice-versa/
Google probably wasn't censoring "Islam is..." suggestions.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/shanerichmond/100004517/islam-is-not-being-censored-by-google/
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"Siri and Speech Recognition, Part 1" - 24 January 2012
Siri's Wikipedia page has some interesting tidbits on the history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri_(software)
I enjoyed Marcus Forsberg's report on why automatic speech recognition is so difficult.
10 page PDF, via Google Documents, but readable.
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"Words of the Year 2011" - 17 January 2012
The American Dialect Society has spoken!
http://www.americandialect.org/occupy-is-the-2011-word-of-the-year
Global Language Monitor's list, if you can be bothered.
http://kut.org/2011/12/the-top-words-of-2011-2/
Although 'grief bacon' was kind of interesting.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/word-of-the-year-2011-choose-your-favourite/story-e6freuzr-1226217271438
The "job creators" meme seems to date from about June 2011.
http://www.google.com/trends/?q=job+creators
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"Carols" - 13 December 2011
You can find out about the origins of a good many words by looking at the Online Etymological Dictionary.
www.etymonline.com
collie
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=collie
troll
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/troll#Etymology_3
Yule
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule
God rest you merry
http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxgodres.html
Tempest, storm, and wind
Google books link
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"Music in Invented Tongues" - 6 December 2011
A very good Slate article on this topic:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2011/11/29/invented_languages_in_music_a_brief_history.html
Hildegard von Bingen was an early writer of music and a conlanger
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.asp
Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five with "Heebie Jeebies" — from 1926, it's one of the first scat songs ever recorded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmGt2U-xTE
http://www.scaruffi.com/history/jazz1.html
Though Ella Fitzgerald's "One Note Samba" is fun and very clever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbL9vr4Q2LU
Is it English, or is it gibberish? It's Prisencolinensinainciusol -- Oll raigth!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcUi6UEQh00
Liz Fraser of the Cocteau Twins talks about what she's singing.
http://www.cocteautwins.com/html/dynamine/lyrics.html
Sigur Rós says Vonlenska (or Hopelandic) is “a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music”.
http://thepriesthood.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/peter-rollins-on-sigur-ros-vonlenska/
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"SlutWalk (featuring Beth Castieau)" - 29 November 2011
SlutWalk Perth
http://www.facebook.com/SlutWalkPerth
The origins of SlutWalk
http://www.blogto.com/city/2011/03/the_origins_of_slutwalk_toronto/
http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/a-rally-to-find-the-slut-in-everyone-20110528-1f9w3.html
It's already happened in Sydney:
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/slutwalk-turns-apathy-into-action-on-sex-attacks-20110612-1fzaf.html?from=smh_sb
Where does the word come from?
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=slut
It's not just Toronto police blaming women for rape. Islamic muftis have been into it for years. Uncovered meat, anyone?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/muslim-leader-blames-women-for-sex-attacks/story-e6frg6nf-1111112419114
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"Linguistic Savings" - 22 November 2011
A write-up in the Yale Daily News:
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/nov/15/economics-and-linguistics-merge-study/
About household savings rates around the world:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_25/b4183010451928.htm
More complete:
Google Document
About emotions and language:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111102093045.htm
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"Yucca Mountain Warning" - 15 November 2011
A good intro:
http://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor/
What the experts came up with: (Long PDF)
http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/1992/921382.pdf
A shorter summary of what the experts came up with:
http://downlode.org/Etext/WIPP/
Some info on radioactive waste, including how long it takes to decay:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste.html
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"Spoke Differently They?" - 8 November 2011
A link to the Ruhlen/Gell-Mann paper at PNAS
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/10/04/1113716108.abstract
Or a shorter run-down
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-physicist-teams-anthropologist-ancient-linguistic.html
An example of an article in the popular press that completely missed the point. They hear "Yoda" and they run with it. It's not just the HuffPo that sucks. Many many journalists do this with science reporting. Understanding things is hard.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/14/yoda-language-study_n_1010720.html
But some get it mostly right.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/10/origins-of-human-language-word-order-subject-object-verb/1
Mark Ellison comments on my blog about this
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=21186777&postID=2467846985629102819
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"Speech Accent Archive (featuring Steven Weinberger)" - 1 November 2011
Here's the Speech Accent Archive:
http://accent.gmu.edu/
An introductory article:
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=354875&paper=81&cat=104
Why do we have different accents anyway?
http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/accent.cfm
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"Languages of the Commonwealth" - 25 October 2011
Here's the Commonwealth Civil Society Statement, with its recommendations about minority languages.
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"Spam Spotting" - 18 October 2011
Wikipedia's Spam page has a good rundown of the history of spam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic)#Etymology
The NYT article on the Cornell team's work
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/technology/finding-fake-reviews-online.html
And Myle Ott's ACL presentation (PDF)
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~myleott/op_spamACL2011_slides.pdf
- - - - - - -
"Um" - 11 October 2011
The etymology of "um"
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/um#Etymology_1
What they say instead of "um" in different languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_(linguistics)
The odd "um" makes you more persuasive
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110515122507.htm
And helps children acquire words
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110414131436.htm
- - - - - - -
"Learning from Twitter" - 4 October 2011
PC World article:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/240831/twitter_analysis_reveals_global_human_moodiness.html
This New York article has some stats about tweet numbers:
http://nymag.com/news/media/twitter-2011-10/
But why not check them out yourself?
http://hide.dnsalias.net/tweetcounter/index-en.cgi
Twitter and trading
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41948275/How_Twitter_Is_Transforming_Trading_in_Commodities
Twitter and health
http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2011/07/mining-twitter-for-public-health-information/
One NLP project about using Twitter to recognise named entities to help during emergencies (PDF)
http://aclweb.org/anthology/W/W10/W10-0512.pdf
- - - - - - -
"You Are What You Speak" - 27 September 2011
More about the book:
http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9781863955416/you-are-what-you-speak-grammar-grouches-language-laws-and-power-words
More about Robert Lane Greene:
http://www.robertlanegreene.com/
- - - - - - -
"Silent Letters" - 20 September 2011
Wikipedia's page on silent letters isn't a bad place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_letter
The Great English Vowel Shift
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A980624
And if you're a Tom Lehrer fan, this'll be right up your alley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVC9TayQIh8
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"Colours in Himba" - 13 September 2011
Here's the video we're talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b71rT9fU-I&feature=player_embedded
And here's a good introductory article on Himba colour terms:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb05/hues.aspx
Or if you prefer, BoingBoing:
http://boingboing.net/2011/08/12/how-language-affects-color-perception.html
Serious scholarly paper alert:
http://tinyurl.com/62j3oto
A good introduction to the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis, including how it relates to colour terms
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/supplement2.html
Uncle Cecil of the Straight Dope quashes the myth that people in Ancient Greek times could only see three or four colours:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/449/could-early-man-only-see-three-colors
If you're into Pirahã:
http://everything2.com/user/cpt_ahab/writeups/Pirah%25E3
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"Austalk" - 6 September 2011
Here's the link to the AusTalk page:
https://austalk.edu.au/
And here's a more formal introduction (PDF):
http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:529167:8/component/escidoc:618561/sst2010-bigASC.pdf
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"Gadafi or Khaddhaffy?" - 30 August 2011
Intro
http://boston.com/community/blogs/less_is_more/2011/02/gaddafi_qaddafi_khadafi_khadaf.html
Why is it so darn hard? This Wikipedia page shows the Arabic characters and some suggested Roman (English) equivalents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Arabic
It's not the first time Arabic Romanisation has come up.
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2003/01/57167
How he transliterates his own name.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/waitwait/2011/03/01/134163629/where-the-gadhafi-spelling-comes-from
Ninety-six permutations at least.
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/018961.html
How do computers do it? Here's a recent scientific paper, if you're really keen.
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1371086
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"Go the F to Sleep" - 16 August 2011
I don't have many links for this one, but here a good article on "fucking" and "the fuck".
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1608
Also a list of phrasal verbs. You can see that "the fuck" pretty much works in all of them.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_phrasal_verbs
- - - - - - -
"Americanisms" - 9 August 2011
The Matthew Engel article that started it all:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/14130942
Mark Liberman's patient response:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3271
Then the BBC does it again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796
And Robert Lane Greene set things right:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/07/peeves
As does Dennis Baron:
http://blog.oup.com/2011/08/ugly-americanism/
"Dictionary of Americanisms", by John Russell Bartlett (1848)
This is a very enjoyable look at what people considered to be Americanisms at the time.
http://www.merrycoz.org/voices/bartlett/AMER02.HTM
But keep in mind that many of these are not really Americanisms -- they first appeared in books printed in England, Scotland, or elsewhere. Check the Oxford English Dictionary if you want to be certain.
- - - - - - -
"Neanderthals" - 2 August 2011
Non-African DNA has Neanderthal sequences, so, you know, stuff was going on there.
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/technology/Neanderthals+interbred+with+early+humans/5125225/story.html
http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979676166
But sadly, we probably pushed them over the brink.
http://io9.com/5826353/there-were-just-too-many-humans-for-neanderthals-to-survive
They had a FOXP2 gene
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071018-neandertal-gene.html
a Broca's area
http://hotword.dictionary.com/neanderthals/
and like us, a lot of them were right-handers
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/73648/title/Most_Neandertals_were_right-handers
The seminal article from Philip Lieberman, who argues that their vocal tract was too short for them to talk (PDF):
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0104.pdf
but then not everyone agrees. (PDF)
http://www.summer10.isc.uqam.ca/Page/docs/readings/BOE_Louis-Jean/Boe_et_al_J_Phonetics_2002.pdf
A pretty good review (PDF):
http://www.lllf.uam.es/~clase/acceso_local/LgCapabili.pdf
- - - - - - -
"Weird Words" - 26 July 2011
Website for the book:
http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9780399536724/thingamajigs-and-whatchamacallits-unfamiliar-terms-familiar-things
- - - - - - -
"Birdsong Syntax" - 19 July 2011
The New Scientist article
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-that-birds-tweet-using-grammar.html
ABC Science also has some info
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/06/27/3254669.htm
I mentioned putty-nosed monkeys:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/pyowpyow-how-the-puttynosed-monkey-tells-its-friends-theres-a-leopard-coming-793980.html
And whales:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060322175201.htm
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"Who Wrote the Bible?" - 12 July 2011
A good intro:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/jazz/52100667-183/bible-software-text-author.html.csp?page=1
The ACL paper. Pretty readable, but mostly for hardcores. (PDF)
http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P/P11/P11-1136.pdf
A really good series from the Straight Dope team about Bible authorship
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1985/who-wrote-the-bible-part-1
And something from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible about discrepancies
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/accounts.html
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"Swedish Pronouns and Gender" - 5 July 2011
A good introductory article:
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1014003--swedish-preschool-takes-aim-at-gender-stereotypes
Defamer is funny.
http://www.defamer.com.au/2011/06/swedish-preschool-bans-gender/
What are the most sexist countries? Find out in the Global Gender Gap report from 2010.
http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2010
Some languages that don't use gender.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutrality_in_genderless_languages
Why don't you go learn some Simple Swedish?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpHniCEHY7I&feature=player_embedded
- - - - - - -
"Time in Amondawa" - 28 June 2011
BBC article
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13452711
Dr Sinha's 'Language and Cognition' article (PDF)
http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/psychology/staff/downloads/filetodownload,133398,en.pdf
Aymara, where the future is behind you (PDF)
http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/BEIJING/nunez-sweetser.pdf
- - - - - - -
"Spying for Metaphor" - 21 June 2011
Some introductory articles:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/why-are-spy-researchers-building-a-metaphor-program/239402/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/05/john-naughton-networker-spooks
Here's the IARPA call for proposals, if you're keen (PDF):
http://www.iarpa.gov/Metaphor_Presentations/Metaphor_Proposers_Day_Brief.pdf
Excerpts from "Metaphors We Live By" by Lakoff and Johnson:
http://theliterarylink.com/metaphors.html
- - - - - - -
"Swearing in Victoria" - 14 June 2011
Some news stories about this:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/31/3231331.htm?section=justin
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/big-fines-for-those-who-cry-foul-20110530-1fctb.html?from=age_sb
This happened in Queensland as well.
http://www.news.com.au/national/queensland-police-win-new-powers-to-fine-for-public-nuisance-offences/story-e6frfkvr-1225880162115
Fully (sic), the language blog at Crikey.com, has a good write-up about this.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/fullysic/2011/06/02/a-f-ing-stupid-law/
My blog post at 'Good Reason'
http://goodreasonblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/victoria-fine-for-swearing.html
Aboriginal people are 15 times more likely to get fined for bad language.
http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/law/aboriginal-prison-rates.html
- - - - - - -
"Language Volunteering" - 7 June 2011
Read Write Now's website is here.
http://www.read-write-now.org/
If English as a Second Language is more your thing, try the Metropolitan Migrant Resource Centre
http://www.mmrcwa.org.au/
or the Adult Migrant English Program.
http://www.immi.gov.au/living-in-australia/help-with-english/amep/
Possibilities abound. If you're a volunteer, tell us how others can get involved.
- - - - - - -
"The Most Human Human" - 31 May 2011
Here's the Guardian article, which was my starting point for finding out about Brian's book.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/30/computers-v-humans-loebner-artificial-intelligence
Brian mentions the MGonz program, and here it is:
http://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~humphrys/eliza.html
Amazon link to Brian's book:
http://www.amazon.com/Most-Human-Talking-Computers-Teaches/dp/0385533063
- - - - - - -
"Planking" - 24 May 2011
Some info on 'planking'
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/layabouts-plank-their-way-across-town-in-latest-net-craze-20110512-1ejun.html
Wikipedia's "planking" page, which claims an Australian origin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planking_(fad)
Beware: planking can be dangerous.
http://www.kidsolo.com/planking-the-new-internet-craze/3640/
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/nsw-man-in-coma-in-a-newcastle-hospital-after-planking-accident/story-e6frg6nf-1226058658459
or at least risky
http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/lawyer-backs-employers-crackdown-on-planking-staff/story-e6frg2t3-1226061214494
Epic plank in Perth:
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/naked-planker-simon-carville-just-wants-to-have-fun/story-e6frfq80-1226061333539
Even strippers plank:
http://plankinglol.com/2011/05/strippers-planking-it-was-bound-to-happen-planking-win/
Also goes by the "lying down game"
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lying-down-game
French: A Plat Ventre
http://www.aplatventre.com/
Origin of 'plank'
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=plank
RICKROLLING
A handy infographic on 'rickrolling'
http://man-over-board.com/2010/06/05/the-complete-history-of-rickrolling-like-you-really-care/
FLASH MOB
Track the usage of 'flash mob' in books for the last 200 years!
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=flash+mob&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
And check how it goes off the chart at 2003.
The new usage: Surrealist performance art
http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/pl_print
And the New York Times uses it in a brand new way: a spontaneous crowd.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/arts/television/bin-ladens-death-how-it-played.html
Great flash mobs
Hammer Pants Dance - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdg-b08uWRc
Frozen Grand Central - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo
Perth Pillow Fight Club 2005 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-R1zggOhY4
One of Jamie's Mum - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
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"Bilingual Ed" - 17 May 2011
Here's the original article from the Age:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/vic-schools-to-teach-bilingual-curriculum-20110514-1enlu.html
Arabic classes in Texas: The initial furore
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hh3fAo88jnumuzzUss1tIhj8xKYg?docId=CNG.6452f9dc1f6d42e812ba63ecbbf7ac98.841
The school district decides to drop it:
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/04/08/2986748/mansfield-schools-lose-grant-for.html
How many languages are spoken in Australia? Census data (PDF):
http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/poa-2008.pdf
Languages in Australia: (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Australia
- - - - - - -
"Super-Brain" - 10 May 2011
More information about Dr Hoffecker's work:
http://www.ts-si.org/horizons/29745-symbolic-language-led-to-human-collective-mind
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"King James Version" - 5 May 2011
Let's start with the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/weekinreview/24mcgrath.html?_r=1
The AP story is good too.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/7545344.html
Compare Ecclesiastes (or any other verses) in two bible versions:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/parallel-bible/passage.aspx?q=ecclesiastes+1&t=kjv&t2=gnt
Richard Dawkins likes the KJV as literature:
http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2010/12/king-james-bible-poetry-shall
http://www.kingjamesbibletrust.org/news/2010/02/19/richard-dawkins-lends-his-support-to-the-king-james-bible-trust
So does Christopher Hitchens:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/05/hitchens-201105?currentPage=all
And some people can't tolerate anything else.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2009/10/22/pastor-host-halloween-bible-burning-event/
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"It Began in Africa" - 19 April 2011
Best to start with the New York Times article
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/science/15language.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Or US News and World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/managing-your-healthcare/research/articles/2011/04/14/human-language-origins-traced-to-africa-study-finds
Or Discover Magazine
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/04/the-african-ur-language/
The original article (paywall)
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6027/346.full
Language evolved once.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/language-may-have-helped-early-h.html?ref=hp
Mark Liberman from Language Log has some concerns
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3090
I got the example of click languages from here:
http://www.theroot.com/views/what-click-languages-africa-tell-about-our-origins
More about mitochondrial DNA and the 'Out of Africa' theory
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070509161829.htm
And Wikipedia's page on the founder effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_effect
- - - - - - -
"Language Change, Literally" - 12 April 2011
The original Slate article by Ben Yagoda
http://www.slate.com/id/2290536/
A response from The Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/04/change
Google's n-gram Viewer
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=pause+momentarily%2C+return+momentarily&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
The original Slate article by Ben Yagoda
http://www.slate.com/id/2290536/
A response from The Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/04/change
Google's n-gram Viewer
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=pause+momentarily%2C+return+momentarily&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
- - - - - - -
"App" - 5 April 2011
Microsoft v Apple
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2382968,00.asp
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/03/trademark
Apple v Microsoft
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/249911,apple-hits-back-in-app-store-trademark-row.aspx
http://www.techeye.net/business/apple-and-microsoft-hire-cunning-linguists-over-app-store
Apple v Amazon
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/21/apple-sues-amazon-for-app-store-trademark-infringement/
Linguists are getting involved
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-and-apple-hire-linguists-to-dispute-app-store-claim/
http://socialbarrel.com/apple-and-microsoft-%E2%80%9Capp-store%E2%80%9D-war-becomes-battle-between-linguists/5586/
http://www.techeye.net/business/apple-and-microsoft-hire-cunning-linguists-over-app-store
Apple sure has a lot of trademarks
http://www.apple.com/legal/trademark/appletmlist.html
"App" is 2010 ADS Word of the Year
http://www.americandialect.org/index.php/amerdial/app_voted_2010_word_of_the_year_by_the_american_dialect_society/
About genericide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/are-you-guilty-of-genericide/
http://www.rinkworks.com/words/eponyms.shtml
Courts are turning to linguists for an increasing number of cases
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/the-corpus-in-the-court-like-lexis-on-steroids/72054/%20
- - - - - - -
"OMG, Oxford! WTF?" - 29 March 2011
Here'e the Big List!
http://www.oed.com/public/latest/latest-update/
Graeme Diamond explains how words get in
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/03/25/how-did-muffin-top-lol-and-omg-get-into-the-oxford-english-dictionary.aspx
Economist article, plus video
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/03/lexicography
Some typical derisive comments
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110325/ap_on_fe_st/eu_britain_new_words
- - - - - - -
"Letters and Hyphens" - 22 March 2011
The AP Stylebook drops 'e-mail' for 'email'
http://mashable.com/2011/03/18/ap-stylebook-email/
Before that, they'd done the same for 'website'.
http://mashable.com/2010/04/16/ap-stylebook-website/
Google n-gram Viewer shows the stats for 'web site' v 'website'
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=web+site%2C+website&year_start=1990&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Ben Zimmer lends some perspective about the 'disappearing hyphen'.
http://blog.oup.com/2007/09/hyphens/
When do you use hyphens anyway?
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/punctuationhyphen/hyphen-
A paper on 'e-' as a prefix (PDF):
http://startrek.ccs.yorku.ca/~topia/docs/conference/McDonald.pdf
.xxx is a top-level domain now.
http://mashable.com/2011/03/19/xxx-tld-porn/
Britain adds the 'x' rating
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_certificate#1932.E2.80.931951
- - - - - - -
"Baby Talk" - 15 March 2011
Deb Roy's TED talk
http://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word.html
More info from Fast Company
http://www.fastcompany.com/1733627/mit-scientist-captures-his-sons-first-90000-hours-on-video
Audio: From 'gaga' to 'water'.
http://www.media.mit.edu/cogmac/audio/water-hp-2_composite.wav
- - - - - - -
"Bilingualism and Alzheimer's" - 8 March 2011
People who speak more than one language show delayed Alzheimer's onset:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/research-suggests-language-learning-staves-off-alzheimers/story-e6frg6so-1226009074740
And the more languages, the better:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110222162304.htm
http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/22/why-speaking-more-than-one-language-may-delay-alzheimers/
More about that Stroop Test:
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-he-bilingual-brain-20110227,0,6215645.story
And a Stroop Test you can try yourself:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/ready.html
More on Alzheimer's:
http://www.mhri.edu.au/alzhiemers.htm
- - - - - - -
"The King's Speech" - 1 March 2011
From PBS (USA)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/02/kings-speech-draws-attention-to-new-stuttering-research.html
Actual footage of George VI, working hard at it:
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=50494
From a parent:
http://www.care2.com/causes/health-policy/blog/stuttering-and-the-kings-speech/
The neurological basis of stuttering:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1683
Colin Firth weighs in on the swearing:
http://entertainment.stv.tv/showbiz/231578-oscars-swearing-shock-as-colin-firth-backs-bad-language/
- - - - - - -
"Shit happens" - 15 February 2011
Video of the Abbott Incident, as well as 20 riveting silent seconds.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Tony-Abbotts-cringeworthy-20-seconds/tabid/313/articleID/197897/Default.aspx#video
Use Google Ngram viewer to find the first instance of "shit happens" in print:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=shit+happens&year_start=1950&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Interested in more about Natural Semantic Metalanguage?
http://www.une.edu.au/bcss/linguistics/nsm/semantics-in-brief.php
- - - - - - -
"Google and Bing" - 08 February 2011
Original article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704124504576118510340787364.html
But here's a good explanation of why Google might be wrong:
http://searchengineland.com/bing-why-googles-wrong-in-its-accusations-63279
- - - - - - -
"Chaser" - 01 February 2011
The New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18dog.html
A YouTube video of Chaser doing her thang:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbI13nbDRRI
What do you think? Has Chaser broken the syntax barrier?
- - - - - - -
"Money for Nothing" - 25 January 2011
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council's decision:
http://www.cbsc.ca/english/decisions/2011/110112.php
An early Globe and Mail article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/music/faggot-lyric-disqualifies-dire-straits-hit-from-canadian-radio-play/article1868052/
CTRC urges a review of the ban:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/crtc-urges-second-look-at-ban-of-dire-straits-song/article1879631/
Radio stations are confused:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/Music/01/24/dire.straits.song.ban.rstone/
but some protest:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/dire-straits-money-for-nothing-banned-in-canada-20110114
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"Watson" - 18 January 2011
News articles on Watson:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/01/13/ibms-jeopardy-playing-computer-tromps-human-players-in-practice-round/
http://mashable.com/2011/01/13/watson-jeopardy/
A promo video here:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/06/15/magazine/1247468055784/how-does-watson-work.html
A scholarly paper (PDF) on the state of QA as of 2001, but this precedes the data-driven explosion after that time.
http://www.loria.fr/~gardent/applicationsTAL/papers/jnle-qa.pdf
And you can try beating Watson yourself.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/06/16/magazine/watson-trivia-game.html
I wonder if all the human players would beat Watson if their answers were aggregated. I bet they would.
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"Huckleberry Finn and the N-Word" - 11 January 2011
Where to start? A New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/books/05huck.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
and one from Publishers' Weekly
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/45645-upcoming-newsouth-huck-finn-eliminates-the-n-word.html
History on the word 'nigger'
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/751/Nigger.html
This writer (who is African American) will take Twain as-is,
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/01/10/taking-mark-twain-and-american-history-straight-up/
while this writer of indeterminate race wants it gone.
http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/394832_nword06.html
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"Words of the Year 2010" - 21 December 2010
Oxford University Press: 'big society'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/24/big-society-oxford-word-2010
Oxford American Dictionary: 'refudiate'
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/refudiate-oxford-dictionary-recognises-mangled-palinism-20101116-17uvt.html
Palin compared herself to Shakespeare:
http://www.news.com.au/world/sarah-palin-creates-word-controversy-compares-herself-to-shakespeare/story-e6frfkyi-1225893820324
but didn't invent the word.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2490
Why not check out the Urban Dictionary's list? It's where I found 'hit the slide'.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/woty.php
And here's the Macquarie Dictionary site, where you'll be able to vote for your favourite word for 2010.
http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/anonymous@9191F86871834/-/p/dict/index.html?
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"Pavlova" - 7 December 2010
An article on the Pavlova issue:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/dictionary-sides-with-nz-in-pavlova-debate-20101203-18j1t.html
The Wikipedia page on lamingtons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamington
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"Accent" - 30 November 2010
Here are links to the three studies we talked about on today's podcast.
Listeners' Brains Respond More to Native Accent Speakers
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101116205650.htm
Foreign Accents Make Speakers Seem Less Truthful to Listeners
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100719164002.htm
Empathy Correlates With Lighter Accent
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090810104931.htm
A bit about Estuary English, if you're curious.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/whatis.htm
And an article from a non-linguist about how accents are disappearing. The author bemoans the loss of some accents, but I think they're still here, just changed.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3811397.ece
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"Bots" - 23 November 2010
Nigel Leck's Twitter account for AI_AGW
http://twitter.com/ai_agw
Sorry we got your name wrong, Nigel.
A couple of news articles about the AGW bot:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25964/?nlid=3722
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/twitter-bot-challenges-climate-change-denialism/
And here are some links to bots that you can play with:
Eliza: http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3
Alice: http://alice.pandorabots.com/
Cleverbot: http://www.cleverbot.com/
And Alan Turing's Wikipedia page, if you want to know more about him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
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"Swearing on TV" - 16 November 2010
Here's a link to an NPR article.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/11/10/131216483/parents-tv-council-presents-most-popular-swear-words-on-television
Here's the original PTC report (PDF) with data.
http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/reports/2010ProfanityStudy/study.pdf
And here's the report from the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority. This is an interesting survey of which words people thought were the worst.
http://www.bsa.govt.nz/pdfs/What%20Not%20to%20Swear%20-%20Publication%20PDF.pdf
Do you agree with the results?
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"Y" - 9 November 2010
The original article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/05/AR2010110504872.html
The biggest letter Y I know of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Mountain
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"Prairie dogs" - 2 November 2010
Where to start?
Here's a clueless and uncritical BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8493000/8493089.stm
Telegraph's not much better:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7060019/Prairie-dogs-chat-with-advanced-language.html
Linguists flagged it early:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003304.html
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"Tibetan" - 26 October 2010
News links:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5guUjJZX2KRru-qKk3fMokd13c_zA?docId=255197ff9b2548389415c4b82a5cca29
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/20/tibetans-protest-language-chinese-schools
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"Language style matching" - 19 October 2010
The ScienceDaily article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101004101322.htm
An article about this in the Economist:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/10/language_style_matching
The original article (PDF):
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/Faculty/Pennebaker/Reprints/Ireland&Pennebaker_JPSP2010.pdf
On Bill Gates getting mirrored by execs at Microsoft:
http://www.tcbreview.com/soundings-sp10.php
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"Koro" - 12 October 2010
Lots of media attention for this one, so we have a few links for your browserment.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/06/3030550.htm?site=news
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/daily/20101006_Hidden_language_found_in_foothills_of_Himalayas.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gAVRFv2Nlq-79gPEL5azCPNS4PkgD9IM5S682?docId=D9IM5S682
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"Latin" - 5 October 2010
Google Translate does Latin:
http://translate.google.com/#la|en|
Latin Wikipedia:
http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagina_prima
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"Geek nerd dork" - 28 September 2010
The Corpus of Contemporary American English
http://corpus.byu.edu/coca
Etymologies
Geek: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=geek
Nerd: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nerd
Dork: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dork
Results for various interesting n-grams. The numbers are chi square values. Anything over 3.84 is 95% significant.
look like a DORK 36.3106736688091
He looked like a DORK 8.49691781161459
(c.f.) look GEEK 5.26345274009908
fat DORK 11.9920873442875
complete DORK 10.7766959486112
is a big DORK 6.68764262529606
biggest DORK 5.38085807184393
brilliant NERD 12.2961316099784
gifted NERD 10.7832589193678
computer NERD 14.6895647693918
computer DORK 11.934512355584
technology GEEK 12.2918969941782
(c.f.) technology NERD 4.98794906200139
Internet GEEK 11.411547688682
software GEEK 8.28319224993126
laptop NERD 9.3097787011992
science NERD 8.9309929825396
computer science NERD 7.39390944995644
electronics GEEK 4.70473745792295
over a year ago · Delete Post
Oh, and those terms above do not necessarily precede 'dork', 'nerd', or 'geek'. They simply occur nearby, typically within a window of about 10 words.
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"Ketchup" - 21 September 2010
The original article:
http://www.news.com.au/business/condiment-shake-up-as-heinz-plays-ketchup/story-e6frfm1i-1225926114013?area=business
The ad, on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU4d5ipkeb4
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"Brain signals" - 14 September 2010
The article
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100907071249.htm
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"Save the Words!" - 7 September 2010
Unable to have a word of your own? Now you can adopt one.
The Oxford site:
http://savethewords.org/
Do you have a favourite?
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"AAVE Translators" - 31 August 2010
The original Smoking Gun article.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/bizarre/justice-department-seeks-ebonics-experts
A good article from the Economist:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/08/ebonics_official_language
Caution: Language attitudes here
http://gawker.com/5620014/justice-department-looking-to-hire-fluent-ebonics-translators
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"Climate Change and the Inughuit" - 17 August 2010
The original article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/13/inuit-language-culture-threatened
What would their language be like? Kind of like other Inuit languages. Here's some information about words for emotions in Inuktitut.
http://www.btb.gc.ca/btb.php?lang=eng&cont=874
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"Wall Street Swearing" - 10 August 2010
Links for your perusal:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/work-email-office/story?id=11282049
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704895004575395550672406796.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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"Updating Enid Blyton" - 3 August 2010
Did you grow up with Blyton's books? And how do you feel about the changes?
Enid in the news:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/golly-blyton-gets-an-update-20100724-10pqm.html
And again:
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/mercy-me-blyton-gets-an-update-20100725-10qff.html
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"Invented Languages" - 6 July 2010
Arika's website:
http://arikaokrent.com/
The book:
http://inthelandofinventedlanguages.com/
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"Login" - 29 June 2010
Links for your perusal:
The site:
http://loginisnotaverb.com/
The Language Log discussion:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2393
The Metafilter discussion:
http://www.metafilter.com/93147/Clearly-login-is-not-a-verb-Its-simply-not
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"Spelling bee protesters" - 22 June 2010
Heer ar sum links that reelait to todaez episoed of 'Tok the Tok'.
The orijinal articl:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100603/ap_on_re_us/us_spelling_bee_protest
Iz English speling responsibl for dislexia?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-explain-rates
The Wikipedia paej for SoundSpel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundSpel
Wuud yu riet liek this?
Wun problem I didn't menshun about speling wurdz liek thae sound iz that we ar not alwaez awaer of how wurds sound.
Plooral 's' can hav three diferent soundz: 's', 'z', and 'iz', az in 'dogz', 'cats', and 'horsiz', but we regard them az mor or les the saim.
And wuud OldSpel 'plural' be 'plooral', 'pluural', or even 'pluurl'?
And can yu reed this aloud without sounding liek a doep?
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"Asian languages" - 15 June 2010
How about that theme song! That was the first time I'd heard it, live on air, and I must say I was favorably impressed.
So did you abandon your study of a language, and why? Would it have helped you?
Some newsy links regarding the report:
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2910865.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/27/2910801.htm?section=justin
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/asian-languages-losing-their-allure/story-e6frgcjx-1225877157372
The official page for the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program:
http://www.deewr.gov.au/schooling/NALSSP/Pages/default.aspx
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"Sarcasm Detector" - 8 June 2010
Here are some links related to the 'Sarcasm Detector' episode.
An easy intro to the Sarcasm Detector
http://www.popsci.com.au/2010/05/finally-a-way-to-detect-sarcasm-in-an-email/
The paper itself -- rather meatier
http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM10/paper/view/1495
Apparently it was Shakespeare who said "Brevity is the soul of wit" -- Polonius says it in Hamlet.
http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/brevity-soul-wit
Whoever said "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit" is still up for question, though. Some say Oscar Wilde, but I don't know.
The SarcMark is one way to make your sarcasm more explicit online.
http://02d9656.netsoljsp.com/SarcMark/modules/user/commonfiles/loadhome.do
But if you have Unicode on your computer, you already have the irony mark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_mark
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"Universal Grammar" - 01 June 2010
This episode covered one of the Big Issues in Linguistics, but we were only able to scratch the surface because of time. Feel free to ask questions or make comments here.
Here are some links that pertain to this episode.
The New Scientist article (PDF)
http://www.reedbusiness.com.au/press/linguistics/290510_032-035
The original article by Evans and Levinson that appeared in Behavioral and Brain Sciences
http://www.mpi.nl/publications/escidoc-64653/@@popup
Many thanks to Dr. Nicolas Evans for appearing on today's episode of 'Talk the Talk'.
His webpage: http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/people/personal/evann_ling.php
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"Cougar" - 25 May 2010
How about it, people? Is 'cougar' derogatory or not?
Here are some links I referred to when preparing for this episode of 'Talk the Talk'.
The original article:
http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/2010/05/19/14002591-wenn-story.html
Another one:
http://www.hollywoodlife.com/2010/05/24/kim-cattrall-cougar-sex-and-the-city-2-menopause-magazine-cover-today-show/
An interesting linguistic article about zoosemic terms, particularly pertaining to human women:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Zoosemic+terms+denoting+FEMALE+HUMAN+BEINGS%3A+semantic+derogation+of+...-a0145929570
Another one, but a PDF:
http://www.univ.rzeszow.pl/wfil/ifa/usar3/sar_v3_06.pdf
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"Waabiny Time" - 18 May 2010
Here are some links I referred to when preparing for this episode of 'Talk the Talk'.
The "Waabiny Time" website.
http://www.waabinytime.tv/
Some news about the show.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h0ZauoIno0mypuCvR6-yGQP_cLhQ
