I was recently writing for my family history blog Birds of Cressingham a piece about a family with the unusual name Whalebelly. Jonas Whalebelly – Birds of Cressingham (wordpress.com) I started wondering what I would write if I were talking about 2 (or more) people with that name. Should I write Whalebellies or Whalebellys? English…… Continue reading What is the plural of Whalebelly?
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Structure of numbers in Indo-European
How are numerals formed in Indo-European languages today, and how were they formed in the ancestral language Proto-Indo-European (PIE)? And do ordering patterns of components within numerals align with other word order patterns in the same languages? Andreea S. Calude and Annemarie Verkerk considered those questions in a paper looking at how 81 present and past…… Continue reading Structure of numbers in Indo-European
Simpler definitions for tax
The UK used to have an Office for Tax Simplification (OTS), created in 2010 to give the UK government the independent advice on simplifying the tax system. In 2022, the OTS issued a report Review of simplification: Approach and interpretation OTS Simplification Review – web copy (publishing.service.gov.uk) A few months later, the UK government abolished…… Continue reading Simpler definitions for tax
Unneeded plural for a document title
When I worked for the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), we had an internal debate about the best way to create the plural form of the name for one type of document. The IASB publishes with each of its Standards a document called a ‘Basis for Conclusions’. This document explains conclusions the IASB reached in…… Continue reading Unneeded plural for a document title
Unusual adjectives from French place names
I’ve always been fascinated by the adjectives French creates from place names. Many of them are formed in fairly predictable ways by just adding a suffix to the place name. Examples are parisien (from Paris) and lyonnais (from Lyon). Others are less obvious, and I list some of them in this post. Well-known places Table…… Continue reading Unusual adjectives from French place names
Nynorsk writer wins Nobel literature prize
The winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature was someone who writes in Norwegian, Jon Fosse. That award is notable not just because Fosse is the first winner known best for his plays since Harold Pinter (2005). And not just because he is the first winner who writes in Norwegian since Sigrid Undset (1928).…… Continue reading Nynorsk writer wins Nobel literature prize
A tell-tale sign of a constructed language?
Martin Haspelmath’s book Indefinite Pronouns (1997) is a detailed examination of the structure and use of indefinite pronouns in many languages. The book looks at 40 languages in detail and gives an overview for 100 more languages. Among many other interesting things in this book, one detail caught my eye. The book identifies a structural…… Continue reading A tell-tale sign of a constructed language?
Surprised by genitive -s in Swedish
Swedish uses a morpheme -s to form genitive noun phrases and, surprisingly, uses it in much the same as English. This post looks at how this works. Much of the discussion here comes from Börjars (1998). Genitive form of unmodified nouns Like English, Swedish creates a genitive form of nouns by adding -s to the…… Continue reading Surprised by genitive -s in Swedish
Lopping sweaters
A spoonerism is an error in speech. In a spoonerism, the speaker swaps the initial consonant of one word with the initial consonant of another word. Spoonerisms take their name from an Oxford academic, Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930). Perhaps the best known spoonerism is one often attributed to Spooner himself, though possibly apocryphally.…… Continue reading Lopping sweaters
Even I wouldn’t use a plural verb here
On the tail end of a radio interview a couple of days ago, I heard someone say ‘agriculture are playing an important part’. ‘Agriculture are’ combines a singular noun with a plural verb and sounded very odd to me. Not a slip of the tongue All of us sometimes get distracted in the middle of…… Continue reading Even I wouldn’t use a plural verb here