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Language Log: The latest word soup from the Bloomberg headline crew

Bloomberg News headlines, as we've observed in the past, often sound like they've been written by someone with a bizarre journalistic strain of aphasia. Consider, as representative samples, "Ebola...

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Language Log: Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015)

Suzette Haden Elgin, a linguist and feminist science fiction writer, died on January 27 at the age of 78. From io9: Suzette Haden Elgin, who died last week, was a pioneer of using linguistics in...

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Language Log: "Imitation Game" codebreakers also played the palindrome game

Doc, note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod. Is this the best palindrome ever created in English? Many think so. (I agree.) But did you know that it was made by the British...

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Language Log: Joshua Fishman (1926-2015)

Joshua Fishman, a founder of the field of the sociology of language and a highly influential scholar of language planning and bilingual education, died last night at his home in the Bronx at the age...

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Language Log: Smoothies, schmoudees, smuuhsies, whatever

On Facebook, Bert Vaux posted about a fascinating bit of Danish loanword phonology. While watching the Danish show Borgen last night I noticed that Kasper, when talking about ordering a smoothie,...

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Language Log: Crash blossom roundup

"Crash blossoms" — those ambiguously phrased headlines that encourage absurd interpretations — are flourishing like never before. Here's a roundup of the latest specimens spotted in the wild. 1. "Matt...

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Language Log: Another SOS for DARE

Two years ago I sent out an "SOS for DARE," that is, a plea for the indispensable Dictionary of American Regional English, which had run into funding troubles. Though DARE was granted a temporary...

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Language Log: Word rage, discreet firearm edition

Oxford University Press has published the fourth edition of Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. The name "Fowler" has been retained as a source of prestige, but this is really the work of...

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Language Log: Headlines that do "absolutely not" scan well

At an event at Salem State University yesterday, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was interviewed on stage by sportscaster Jim Gray. Gray used the opportunity to ask Brady about the...

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Language Log: Hating Mondays more than Garfield

Today's "Dilbert" (5/18/15): Alice's statement, "I hate Mondays more than Garfield," relies on the shared social knowledge that Garfield, the feline title character of Jim Davis's long-running comic...

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