Jen's WebLog notes that the British Computing Society, in urging UK researchers "to investigate implementing more human-like behavior in computers", failed to mention speech and language. Nassira Nicola at Journal Extime points out that in French, an allophone is a kind of person, whereas in English, it's a kind of sound. Trevor at kaleboel speculates about ethnohistory, as he often does, and offers a brief sketch of his journey by bicycle from Barcelona to Cadiz, which reads roughly like the Cliff's Notes version of a random selection from Cervantes as re-written by Henry Miller. Kerim Friedman at Keywords provides some nice Groucho Marx quotes, in relation to the death of Robert Dwan, producer of You Bet Your Life ( Dwan: Anyway, he's from Hawaii … Groucho: From where? Dwan: Hawaii. Groucho: I'm all right, how are you?). Erika at Kittenishly Doomy Thoughts explains why "[j]ust as Gamera is the friend of all children, Wikipedia is the friend of all linguists"; documents the eggcorn long and sorted (as in "tale")[and see this echo as "sorted past" on the Gear Page]; and quotes John Simon to the effect that descriptive linguists are "a curse upon the race", while swooning over Jesse Sheidlower. (That's Erika doing the swooning, not -- as far as I know -- John.) Ah, the glamour of lexicography!
Posted by Mark Liberman at February 7, 2005 09:32 AM