linguistlaura

Someone on Reddit was trying to identify the fibre their yarn was made from, and someone suggested burning a bit of it since burning hair/wo...

Just before Christmas, I played a game with a group of friends that consists of secret missions that you have to complete without ...

On last week's episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, they said that women at *some point in history that I've forgotten - Tudor Englan...

I've talked about 'double negation' before, by which I really mean negative concord: using two negative elements in one clause t...

Right, here's the other post I promised yesterday . The other litter-related sign I saw said this: Picking up your litter puts road wo...

I was driven across the country on Saturday, all the way from Sidmouth in Devon to Margate in Kent. On the way I noticed two signs about lit...

My friend Michelle reminded me that Theresa May said this back in January, and has kept on saying it since then. Most people have been non-p...

From next Monday, you can't buy discounted tickets once you're on board Southeastern trains, only the full-price ones. This, while a...

One of the pubs I go to in Margate has these awful seaside postcard illustrations on the walls of the toilet. These are pretty tame, usually...

On this week's episode of QI (available on the iPlayer for a few days if you're in the UK), Sandi Toksvig asked Alan Davies the foll...

I've written before about negation and the difference in meaning when it takes different scope. The other day, a friend in the pub said...

I'm reading The City and the City  by China Mi éville at the moment. I'm only about 60 pages in but I already really like it, pa...

There is a building site at my work (show me a university that doesn't have at least one building site on campus at any given moment) an...

The other day (cannot now remember where but I suspect QI), I heard someone ask this question: Why did the man who invented the weather fo...

It's been a while since I mocked some signage. Let's do that today. Sorry about the poor quality photo: 'Please do not store...

I overheard an interesting conversation on the train this weekend. One man was telling his friend about 'the most racist moment ever on ...

I saw this cartoon tweeted recently: Double negatives in court via @CrimeLineLaw pic.twitter.com/b8xSrlny2V — Roddy Mansfield (@roddyma...

I was in London recently, and while I was at King's Cross station I noticed that the escalators, which bear the usual safety warnings, n...

I'm aware that it's been far too long since I blogged. Life and work have both been a bit busy; I'll be bloggi...

Associated Press caused a twitter hoo-ha when they mistakenly led a lot of their followers to think that there had been yet another air cra...