We have probably all heard by now of how AI Large Language Models behave when they don’t know the answer. They have a habit of just making up an answer and not telling you that they are doing this. I’ve been trying out Microsoft’s Copilot occasionally. Recently, I asked it 2 questions to help with…… Continue reading AI just making it up
Month: October 2024
Disappearing A-level languages
People have been saying for years that language teaching in British schools is in decline. Here are some statistics that make the point. The statistics show entries for A-level exams in modern languages in 2024 and in 1993. Children sit A-levels at the end of secondary school when they are about 18. The figures: are…… Continue reading Disappearing A-level languages
Distinguishing siblings
Many languages have different nouns for different types of sibling. But different languages use different features to distinguish types of sibling. Table 1 shows the terms for siblings in 3 languages: English distinguishes between male siblings and female siblings. Indonesian (an Austronesian language) distinguishes between older siblings and younger siblings, but does not distinguish between…… Continue reading Distinguishing siblings
When ‘not’ met ‘any’
A headline in The Times on 19 October 2024 reminded me of something I have written about before. The headline said: Labour’s ambition to boost trade with China must not be achieved at any cost. The intended meaning was something like (1): (1) To boost trade with China, Labour [the UK government] should incur only…… Continue reading When ‘not’ met ‘any’
Keep it concise, but not too concise
Editors often advise writers to keep their texts as concise as possible. That is generally good advice. Concise texts are easier to read and understand, and easier to refer back to. But it is important not to carry that advice too far. If you delete from a text every word that is theoretically dispensable, the…… Continue reading Keep it concise, but not too concise
Eva can now put an apostrophe in the name of her shop
German makes much less use of the apostrophe than English does. But the latest edition of the Amtliches Regelwerk der deutschen Rechtschreibung (Official Regulations on German Orthograpy) introduces a new option. It is now possible to use the apostrophe in the names of (for example, shops, restaurants or bars) containing personal names. An example is…… Continue reading Eva can now put an apostrophe in the name of her shop
From the mouths of TV detectives
My friend and former colleague Paul Pacter has compiled a list of slang used by the police in southern England. He produced it while watching all 15 seasons of the British TV show A Touch of Frost, starring David Jason as Detective Inspector Jack Frost. Most of the slang was spoken by Frost himself, and…… Continue reading From the mouths of TV detectives
Talking with ET
Who knew that a word exists to describe the study of extraterrestrial language? The word—Xenolinguistics—features in the title of a recent book Xenolinguistics: towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language (2024), edited by Douglas A Vakoch and Jeffrey Punske. In the book, biologists, anthropologists, linguists, and specialists in communication explore what is known about human language…… Continue reading Talking with ET
Happy Hangul day!
Today (9 October) is Hangul Day. Hangul is the name used in South Korea and most of the world for the writing system used in writing Korean. Although the spelling ‘Hangul’ is often used in English, the official transliteration in South Korea is now Hangeul or Han-geul. For more on Hangul, please see Hangul Day…… Continue reading Happy Hangul day!
The passive. Is it really harder to understand than the active?
People who give advice on good writing often claim that sentences containing verbs in the passive form are harder for listeners and readers to process than sentences containing verbs in an active form. A paper I read recently provides evidence that these claims are overstated. The paper is Processing unambiguous verbal passives in German, by…… Continue reading The passive. Is it really harder to understand than the active?