In this episode, we continue our look at the gradual emergence of Middle English from the linguistic rubble left in the wake of the Norman Conquest. English remained fractured and broken, and foreign influences continued to come in. We explore the changing language of the Peterborough Chronicle. We also examine how a merchant’s failed attempt to buy some eggs shaped the history of the English language.
http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2016/03/02/episode-75-mixed-languages-and-scrambled-eggs/
Professor Steven Pinker joins Michael Rosen and Dr Laura Wright in the studio for a wide-ranging talk about his love of, and life working in, language. Steven is Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and he’s come up with some of the biggest and most exciting ideas about language. His books include The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and most recently, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.
Tagged with book:author=steven pinker language bbc word of mouth linguistics
For centuries, colonialists, church leaders and educators discouraged Irish people from using their native tongue. When Ireland won independence, its leaders had no idea just how difficult it would be to bring the language back. Despite that, there’s hope for Irish today.
Tagged with language linguistics irish pri
At the frontiers of computing and language, new developments are producing shock waves that have yet to hit the mainstream. Automated tweeters relate every word in the dictionary and assemble sonnets out of the metrical, rhyming tweets of others. Interactive fiction connects wordplay and world-building and models the social norms of the Regency romance. Coders develop languages that are programmed with images, recipes, and Shakespearean-style plays. This panel will consider the fundamental questions about computing and language that these projects are raising, explore exactly how these provocations operate, and look at how new projects relate to each other.
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Original video: https://soundcloud.com/officialsxsw/hacking-language-bots-if-and-esolangs-sxsw-interactive-2016
Downloaded by http://huffduff-video.snarfed.org/
Tagged with sxsw sxswi sxsw2016 south by southwest language bots linguistics
Dr Lynne Murphy celebrates those little tiny words that glue our lives together and make our language work. It is about learning to love those words, about treasuring them and keeping them safe. It is about appreciating those little things in life and one little word particular that I haven’t used in this post.
Any guesses what it might be?
Lynne Murphy is a Reader in Linguistics at University of Sussex.
Twitter @lynneguist
Tagged with dr lynne murphy language linguistics tiny words
WARNING: this episode is full of FOUL PROFANE LANGUAGE. I suggest you don’t listen to it through loudspeakers at a christening.
Today I’m trying to figure out why ‘cunt’ is considered to be a ruder swear word than others like ‘twat’ which mean the same thing, or male equivalents like ‘dick’ and ‘knob’. A few hundred years ago, cunt was sufficiently not-rude that there were streets named Gropecunt Lane in most of Britain’s major market towns; yet now, it is top tier of the hierarchy of offensiveness. But maybe in another few hundred years, it will have been supplanted by ‘swear word’ or ‘Jeff’.
Tagged with the allusionist language linguistics word swearing cunt
You’d think you could trust dictionaries, but it turns out, they are riddled with LIES.
Delivering this upsetting news is Eley Williams, who is just finishing up her PhD about mountweazels, esquivalience and other hoax words that lexicographers have snuck into dictionaries.
Tagged with the allusionist language linguistics words dictionaries lexicography
A social media mistake for the record books, and a quiet saint of Wikipedia.
http://gimletmedia.com/episode/14-the-art-of-making-and-fixing-mistakes/
“Sweeping, erudite, sharply argued, and fun to read” (Time), cognitive scientist and linguist Steven Pinker has charted the way humans form thoughts and engage the world through a wide array of scientific research, scholarly writing, popular books, and magazine articles. These bestsellers include The Better Angels of our Nature, The Language Instinct, and Pulitzer Prize finalists The Blank Slate and How the Mind Works. In 2010 and 2011 he was named to Foreign Policy magazine’s list of top global thinkers. Pinker’s new book explores the ways in which the English language is being corrupted by texting and social media in order to propose practical guidelines for crafting useful, elegant prose.
(Recorded 10/1/2014)
http://libwww.freelibrary.org/podcast/index.cfm?podcastID=1285
How much does the way food is described influence what we eat? Superstar apple breeder David Bedford tells us why he spends up to nine months finding the perfect name for his new creations. Can words be too enticing? We hear the story of the humble Patagonian toothfish, whose re-branding success story nearly led to its extinction. President of the Gourmand World Cookbook awards Edouard Cointreau takes us on a tour of the seemingly insatiable global market for cookbooks. But has our love for writing about food gone too far? Language specialist Steven Poole tells presenter Angela Saini why some restaurant menu jargon infuriates him. Plus food writer Fuschia Dunlop shares her reflections on Chinese menus that attract diners with such adjectives as ‘slimy’, ‘gristly’ and ‘glutinous’.
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