'Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language'
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Just saw this nice bit of syntactic ambiguity from Wittgenstein on quotes of the day
B-)
Recently in Linguablogging Category
I love Melvyn Bragg. Four days before I introduce the students to the philosophy of science, and three before Bhavana does it in Dubai, he's just broadcast, and podcast, a discussion of Karl Popper.
What a guy B-))
Has anybody coined a word yet for that moment when you're either shuffling or listening to shared music and just the right track comes on at just the right time? I reckon a key part of it is that it should be something you'd kind of forgotten. Something to do with serendipity, maybe?
It just happened to me with I'm So Bored With the USA bringing back memories of my first dramatic performance as Widow Twankey in the still fondly remembered (by people who were in it) 'Batman and Robin in Pantoland' where the Joker, the Riddler, Catwoman and the Penguin adapted it to 'We're So Bored With Pantomime!' And funnily enough, I had a phone call from Robin last night.
B-)
Just received this from balderdash & piffle
Help them out if you were dogging before 1993 or anything.
B-)
. . . . . . . .
Hello,
Just wanted to let you know that the BBC2 show Balderdash & Piffle has recently launched a second Wordhunt. Together with the OED, we're appealing for the public's help in rewriting the dictionary entries for words such as 'loo', 'duh brain', 'identity theft' and 'hoodie'. We're looking for written evidence of the history and origins of 40 such words - the full list, and more information, can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/balderdash
I've also attached a full press release about the project.
I love this word. I just checked and Arsene Wenger used it twice in an interview about David Beckham. I'm not sophisticated enough to link straight to the video but the link is on this page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/default.stm
Look under 'Beckham moves to LA Galaxy' and click on the Wenger video
B-)
Ali G talks to Noam Chomsky
I is well amused.
B-)
SCOTS - Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech
Enjoying this. Did a quick search for bosie which is the one Scottish word the kids have grown up with and found this:
Mr Ted
Fin I pit on ma jammies, an climm the stairs tae bed
I ken that he'll be wytin, ma frien caad Mr Ted
An fin I coorie doon tae sleep
I'll haud him in ma bosie
He's made o fur, he disnae gurr
He's affa affa cosie
As Auntie Harriet says, 'there's naething like a bosie'!
B-)
