Month: May 2022

How many cases are there in Hungarian and Finnish? (2)

I have written before about the major cases in Finnish and Hungarian. https://languagemiscellany.com/2022/03/how-many-cases-are-there-in-hungarian-and-finnishIn this post, I cover the local / spatial cases in those languages. These cases express such concepts as location, movement to or from a place. Finnish Finish has 6 of these cases, made up of 2 series, each containing 3 cases. Cases…… Continue reading How many cases are there in Hungarian and Finnish? (2)

The language of Contract Bridge?

In the card game Contract Bridge, players transmit information by making bids. So, is bidding in Contract Bridge a language? Bidding systems used in Bridge: are like language, because they use a vocabulary of words that convey meanings. But there are important differences between the 2 types of vocabulary.are not like language, because they have…… Continue reading The language of Contract Bridge?

The Elizabeth Line line and Battersea Power Station station

Transport for London finally opened the Elizabeth Line today. It is only 3½ years late and £4 billion over budget. And this after TfL and the project managers announced proudly 6 months before the originally planned opening date that this project was a unique example of how large-scale public works really could be delivered on…… Continue reading The Elizabeth Line line and Battersea Power Station station

Learning to eat in the past

How do young children learn to create inflected forms of words? For example, how do they learn that: most English verbs form the past tense with the suffix -ed (eg walked from walk);some English verbs undergo other types of change in the past tense (eg sat from sit);a few have complexly unrelated past tense forms…… Continue reading Learning to eat in the past

‘Similar to’ in starting a sentence

Over the last 10 years or so, I have seen more and more sentences starting with the phrase Similar to. These sentences often say something like: Similar to A, B does X. Here is a slightly abbreviated version of a recent example I saw in The Times [of London]. Similar to much of myalgic encephalomyelitis…… Continue reading ‘Similar to’ in starting a sentence

Ultracrepidarianism

I learnt this splendid word in an article about the eccentric English politician Jacob Rees-Mogg, who cultivates the air of an outdated aristocrat who has barely reached the 19th century, let alone the 21st. It means the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one’s knowledge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultracrepidarianism The man himself would be…… Continue reading Ultracrepidarianism

Doing work and playing roles in Italian

Several constructions in Italian use the verb fare (‘do’, ‘make’). Two of these constructions look very similar on the surface but syntactically they behave in very different ways. A short book Fare: Elementi di sintassi, by Nunzio La Fauci and Ignazio M Mirto (2003) analyses them. Here are 2 examples: (1) Adamo fa il medicoAdam…… Continue reading Doing work and playing roles in Italian

Luxembourg’s submerged language comes to the surface

Thanks to my former colleague Alan Fisk. He has kindly allowed me to post this article he wrote for a magazine in about 1993. In the streets of the city of Luxembourg, all the signs and public notices are in French. Buy a newspaper, and it will be mainly in German. Here and there, messages…… Continue reading Luxembourg’s submerged language comes to the surface