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Monthly Archives: January 2008
language death
Just yesterday I was teaching the first class of an introductory linguistics course, and I asked students how many languages they thought were currently spoken in the world. Guesses ranged from one to ten thousand, which was pretty good for a first class. When the last version of Ethnologue came out, it claimed there were 6,912 languages [...]
The schizophrenia of “free” trade
The amazing thing about the NYTimes is that you can, in one day, read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/opinion/16landsburg.html “All economists know that when American jobs are outsourced, Americans as a group are net winners.” and also read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/us/16ohio.html “Middle-aged men moving in with parents, wives taking two jobs, veteran workers taking [...]
Pullum deems student pompous
Over at languagelog, Geoffrey Pullum takes a student to task for writing on a test that some phrases in an example sentence “were not deemed noun phrases.” He feels that students shouldn’t be “deeming” anything, as they’re the students and he’s the professor, and that further pomposity was added by the passive voice. When I read [...]
“Jersey City’s Little India Kicks Jackson Heights’ Ass”
Don’t just take my word for it — the trustworthy Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice says so: “Little India has bloomed like a rosewater lassi, so that now the thoroughfare and surrounding streets form a South Asian business district more impressive than either Jackson Heights or Iselin, New Jersey.”
super-meta