Linguistics

Linguistics

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Top Ten Mad Libbed Movie Quotes

(Image Above: Media Bistro.com ) Who doesn’t love a good Mad Lib? Not you. Not me. Not anyone. So, this week’s Top Ten is here to bring you nonsensical fun! Fill in the categories below, then read on to make your marvelous Mad Libs of the Top ten Movie Quotes. Be sure to comment with your funniest line! 10. (noun); (adjective) 9.  (noun) 8. (adjective); (noun) 7. (noun); (verb with -ing) 6. (verb); (noun) 5. (verd with -ed); (noun); (verb) 4. (noun) 3. (noun); (verb) 2. (noun... Read Full Story

Michigan's Upper Penisula

Tamy from 3 Sides of Crazy comes to us from Northern Michigan where she writes about crafts, cooking and home but today she's got her walking shoes on as she guides us around Michigan's Upper Peninsula. *** Hubby and I moved to the upper peninsula Michigan from the west coast a couple of years ago to work on an investment house. Long story short, we're still here, but hoping to return home soon. We have taken the time to explore the area though and have found many wonderful things with LOTS... Read Full Story

The Language of the Future: Evolutionary Math Breaks the Code

From:  dailygalaxy.com
Harvard mathematicians have found that words evolve in a concise manner directly related to frequency of usage. The research looked at the evolution of the English language over the past 1,200 years and found that it’s the infrequently-used words with the habit of changing. Apparently, just as genes and organisms undergo natural selection, words are also subject to a similarly intense pressure to "regularize" as the language develops. The researchers quantified this trend and compare it... Read Full Story

Linguistics Quotation Favorites - Nonsensical Semantics

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." -Noam Chomsky Syntactically sound but semantically senseless sentence created by Noam Chomsky in 1957 to demonstrate the need for more structured models of grammar. Read Full Story

Spanish Reflexive Verbs and Their Various Forms

From:  articleslide.com
Spanish verbs are probably the most difficult area of learning Spanish to master and Spanish reflexive verbs that originate from irregular verbs most of all This article explains what reflexive verbs are and how they are used Read Full Story

The Semantics of Slower Traffic

It seems that there are just too many drivers that don't fully grasp the meaning of this sign. Semantically speaking, the two most important aspects of the sign are the comparative inflectional morpheme -er and the word right . I think it is a fair assumption that anyone who has a driver license knows right from left so the problem must lie with the comparative inflectional morpheme. Following is an example that illustrates the semantics of slower traffic. If you are driving 80 mph in the... Read Full Story

Five Common Grammar Errors as Illustrated by Zombies

Grammar is hard; if anyone ever tells you otherwise, they’re trying to sell you a book. Even so, there are some mistakes you can easily make that will cause people to whisper bad things about you when you enter a room. Phrases such as “bless his heart” and “There are programs…” If you’d rather not become the talk of the town, read on and and learn how to avoid some of the most common grammatical mistakes. Also, zombies. Photo by chaosfish1 1.) Dangling participles Dangling participles... Read Full Story

Morphemes Make Creative Words

A favorite blog of mine documents unusual and creative words that are found across the web. Even the name of the blog ( Wordlustitude ) exemplifies creativity with a word. One of the ways new words are created is by combining morphemes in different ways and by adding morphemes to existing words. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language. Following is a diagram of the different types of morphemes. A free morpheme is what its name implies - a morpheme that can stand on its own as... Read Full Story

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Paraprosdokian or Treat

Happy Halloween "A paraprosdokian (from Greek "παρα-", meaning "beyond" and "προσδοκία", meaning "expectation") is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part." - Wikipedia Read Full Story

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Paraprosdokian or Treat

Happy Halloween "A paraprosdokian (from Greek "παρα-", meaning "beyond" and "προσδοκία", meaning "expectation") is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part." - Wikipedia Read Full Story
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