Green Great Dragons (aka: English Modifier Order)
Stuff that we English speakers know, but don't know we know
Posts
Syntax - Why so CareMad?
Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya - Syntax Matters - What Programmers can learn from the World of Linguistics from Erlang Solutions on Vimeo . Syntax tends to get people remarkably upset in the programing world ( semicolons anyone? ), with virtually any introductory talk on Erlang (Haskell, Clojure, whatever) invariably containing a self-deprecatory quote about its Syntax. The thing people tend to forget is that this isn't new! Syntax has been upsetting hominids since the first australopithecus said " Urghk " instead of " Oook ", and got righteously thumped for it, and has continued to the present day (check out " French is better than " on Teh Googles ). Whats worse, people tend to mistake Syntax for Semantics , resulting in both chaos (and torture. Seriously). I gave a rant talk on this topic at CodeMesh a wee bit back. The video is above, and the slides below. Syntax - Why so CareMad? from Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya Remember...
NYC Tweets by Language - Visualized
Ed Manley and James Chesire analyze tweets from NYC , and the results pretty much point out the polyglot nature of New York. From their description English (in grey above) is by far the most popular with Spanish (in blue above) taking the top spot amongst the other language groups. Portuguese and Japanese take third and fourth respectively. Midtown Manhattan and JFK International Airport have, perhaps unsurprisingly, the most linguistically diverse tweets whilst specific languages shine through in places such as Brighton Beach (Russian), the Bronx (Spanish) and towards Newark (Portuguese). You can also spot international clusters on Liberty Island and Ellis Island and if you look carefully the tracks of ferry boats between them. Ed has written up some more in depth analysis of the data here . Mind you, nobody seems to be tweeting in Kannada :-) (The below is an image - go here to see the interactive version )
Why I've grown to loathe C
Ever since I stopped using C as my primary / go-to language (currently erlang and perl , but including pascal , smalltalk , java , lisp , and eiffel at times) I've always had this vague hatred of it, but its always been hard to quantify, with any attempts to discuss this usually being met by responses that were inevitably fanyboish, both pro, and against. Witness Damien Katz's recent - and unintentionally hilarious - Unreasonable Effectiveness of C , and its followup (no, I'm not going to fisk them - read them, preferably not while drinking anything to avoid spit-takes). It pretty much sums up the fanboy position for any language, best summarized as Take everything that matters to the project you are currently working on Explain why your preferred language is the single best language to implement whatever it is Hint that pretty much everything else doesn't even come close Throw in a grab-bag of other random features that - of course - your language does be...
Indian English
Every wondered why Indians drop Articles? I am coming from Office Ever wondered about the joyous mixing of V and W ? I am wery tired Or about the introductions are puzzling? What is your good name please? Turns out there is actually a rationale. Herewith a paper that explains this in detail. Mind you, if you want to look up specifics, go check out Samosapaedia , for the ultimate glossary on Indian English... LANGUAGE IN INDIA English has been with India since the early 1600's, when the East India Company started trading and English missionaries first began their efforts. A large number of Christian schools imparting an English education were set up by the early 1800's. The process of producing English-knowing bilinguals in India began with the Minute of 1835, which officially endorsed T.B. Macaulay's goal of forming "a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern - a class of persons, Indians in blood and...