25 August 2009
Ben Zimmer has the scoop on an anachronism in the TV show Mad Men over at his Word Routes blog.
[Hat tip to Language Hat for pointing this article out.]
Chaucer’s Astronomy & Treatise on the Astrolabe
25 August 2009
My second podcast for the 365 Days of Astronomy is up on the web. This one talks about Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe (did you know that Chaucer was also a tech writer?) and on various astronomical allusions in his poetry.
You can get the podcast here or via iTunes for free.
No homo
19 August 2009
I’ve really got to spend more time paying attention to rap and hip hop. It’s a musical style that incorporates an astonishing amount of inventive language and wordplay. Here’s a video of Jay Smooth explaining the phrase no homo, a phrase I was unaware of until I saw this video. He describes its origin and how it’s used, and he gives a cogent summary of the problems with using a word or phrase that is derogatory to a group of people.
Hat tip to Mark Liberman over at Language Log.
Fry’s English Delight
11 August 2009
British comedian Stephen Fry has launched a new series ("season" in US parlance) of his BBC 4 radio program, Fry’s English Delight. The first episode is “So Wrong It’s Right,” about how usage determines what is “correct.”
New episodes are posted to the web on Tuesdays. They’re available for free for one week.
Next week is “Speaking Proper.”
Ben Zimmer—2nd Best Person in the World
6 August 2009
Keith Olbermann has named lexicographer Ben Zimmer, executive producer of Visual Thesaurus and denizen of Language Log, as the 2nd best person in the world for his debunking of the urban legend that kronkiter is a word in Swedish (or Dutch) for news anchor.
