Clipmarks | mona's 'language' clips

defective verbs

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:36:49 GMT

clipped by: mona

In linguistics, a defective verb is a verb with an incomplete conjugation.

The most commonly recognized defective verbs in English are the class of preterite-present verbs — can, may, shall, might, must, and will (which was not historically a preterite-present but has joined the class in modern English).

For example, can lacks an infinitive, future tense, participle, and gerund. The missing parts of speech, however, can be expressed by using the appropriate forms of to be plus able to. So, while I could do it and I was able to do it are equivalent, one cannot say *I will can, *I have canned, or *canning do it, but would still be able to say I will be able to, I have been able to, and being able to do it.

Examples from other languages

French: frire ("to fry", lacks non-compound past forms), éclore ("to hatch", theorically lacks an imperfect, although speakers easily fill it in)

Tags: english, language, linguistics, grammar, conjugation

Word wars - susbsidiarity

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 16:21:47 GMT

clipped by: mona
clipper's remarks: Having studied politics at University, I practically grew up with the concept of subsidiarity. It strikes me as absurd that this should be deemed a nonexistent word and one that should be abolished at that. If anything, can't it just be created for the sake of argument?

Clip Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk

The Assembly of European Regions has the world’s dictionaries, especially Microsoft’s UK spellchecker, in its sights. I quote below and the letter, by Klaus Klipp, the AER’s Secretary-General, was not written in green ink.

“We are writing to draw your attention to the word “subsidiarity”, which we regretfully note is not listed in your dictionary.

“The principle of subsidiarity has been a pillar of social, theological and political thought for centuries, and is these days referred to in legal statutes, national constitutions and international treaties. The EU’s proposed Treaty of Lisbon, for example, mentions the word “subsidiarity” no less than 30 times.

“We are therefore puzzled that the word, despite its frequent use in European politics and law in particular, has been excluded from numerous dictionaries in languages across Europe and the world.

George Orwell, in his 1946 essay on Politics and the English Language had it right.

This word should be kept out of the political dictionary.

Tags: english, language, puzzling, dispute

Wordie, for people who love words

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 02:01:12 GMT

clipped by: johnny99
clipper's remarks: Wordie lets you make word lists and discuss words and language--it's a social network for logophiles.

Clip Source: wordie.org

Wordie [wûrd • ē]

Like Flickr, but without the photos.

Tags: words, language

English accent sound bytes

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:41:23 GMT

clipped by: mona
clipper's remarks: great archive of sound bytes in the English language read out by native speakers of a huge variety of languages! far, far too many to clip. well worth a visit and a few clicks.

Clip Source: accent.gmu.edu

Browse by language

afrikaans

albanian

antigua and barbuda creole english

Tags: english, accents

Weird and Wonderful Foreign Phrases

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 08:21:47 GMT

clipped by: Nerfzilla
clipper's remarks: I hope I'm not being a jayus.....!

Clip Source: www.mirror.co.uk

Weird and wondrful foreign phrases..

Clip Source: www.bbc.co.uk

In this episode, The Teacher introduces you to three idiomatic phrases connected with fish.

1. There's something fishy about this
2. A big fish in a small pond

3. A fish out of water

Watch the video

Tags: fish, english, language, idioms

cat - the teacher

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:49:06 GMT

clipped by: mona
clipper's remarks: 3. To put the cat among the pigeons (didn't clip that for some reason)

Clip Source: www.bbc.co.uk

In this episode, The Teacher introduces you to three idiomatic phrases connected with cats.

1. There isn't enough room to swing a cat
2. To let the cat out of the bag

Watch the video

Programme script (pdf - 16 k)

Tags: cat, cats, english, idioms, language

another language down

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:10:32 GMT

clipped by: mona
clipper's remarks: somehow i find it hard to believe that there are currently only roughly 7000 languages spoken on Earth. I would've thought there'd be that many in Africa, alone!

Clip Source: www.nationalgeographic.com

Losing Our World's Languages

Every 14 days a language dies. By 2100, more than half of the more than 7,000 languages spoken on Earth—many of them never yet recorded—will likely disappear, taking with them a wealth of knowledge about history, culture, the natural environment, and how the human brain works.

Studying various languages also increases our understanding of how humans communicate and store knowledge. Every time a language dies, we lose part of the picture of what our brains can do.

Throughout human history, the languages of powerful groups have spread while the languages of smaller cultures have become extinct. This occurs through official language policies or through the allure that the high prestige of speaking an imperial language can bring. These trends explain, for instance, why more language diversity exists in Bolivia than on the entire European continent, which has a long history of large states and imperial powers.

Tags: language, extinction

witnessing the birth of language

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 08:32:24 GMT

clipped by: sylviadafox

Clip Source: www.visualthesaurus.com

An offhand comment by a former professor tipped off New York Times reporter Margalit Fox to a remarkable linguistic quest: A group of researchers studying, firsthand, the birth of a language. The birth of a language? These scientists had been working secretly in a Bedouin village in the Israeli desert that, because of an unusually high population of deaf residents, had spontaneously created its own sign language, used by deaf and hearing villagers alike. What their experience teaches us about all languages, signed and spoken, is the subject of Margalit's amazing new book, Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind,

Fifty years ago a young scholar named Noam Chomsky came blazing onto the linguistics scene and revolutionized the field.

His assertion,

was that human beings come into the world hard-wired to make, acquire and use language.

You have this naturally occurring situation with a whole cohort of deaf people who are hard-wired with the same language instinct

Tags: deaf, language

Collective Nouns

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:20:22 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: So what is the collective noun for collective nouns? I wonder.

Clip Source: users.tinyonline.co.uk

One of the many oddities of the English language is the multitude of different names given to collections or groups, be they beasts, birds, people or things. Many of these collective nouns are beautiful and evocative, even poetic.

Birds ~ Mammals ~ Invertebrates ~ Insects & Arachnids ~ Molluscs ~ Fish
Amphibians & Reptiles ~ People ~ Miscellaneous ~ Some That Might Be

A cast of falcons
A charm of finches (chirm, trembling, trimming)
A stand of flamingos

A pitying of turtledoves

A clowder of cats (glaring, cluster, clutter)

A pod of dolphins

A clan of hyenas

An army of caterpillars

A quiver of cobras

A rhumba of rattlesnakes

A babble of barbers
A promise of barmen

A blush of boys

A herd of harlots
A melody of harpists
An observance of hermits
A gang of hoodlums
A cavalcade of horsemen
A blast of hunters

A clutch of eggs
A bundle of firewood
A bed of flowers (bouquet, bunch, patch)
A colony of fungi

A rabble of remedies

Some That Might Be

A balance of accountants
A bevy of alcoholics

A load of cobblers

Tags: language, english, collective nouns, vocabulary