English
hooked & hooker
Only recently I realised the metaphor behind hooked: If you’re on the hook, you’re addicted. OK wow yay – and ehm yes, quite straightforward, actually. So I wondered if there are any other metaphors with hooks. Read on…
The case against language policing and grammar snobbery
I’m an avid listener of podcasts. As there’s more good stuff to listen to than I have time for, I’ve also become a collector of podcasts. That’s why I only now listened to an old episode of Talk the Talk discussing „grammar elitism“. Read on…
Logs that burn and logs that swim
Every new medium needs its own lingo. Let’s say you build an network of machines that store and show information. You could call it infocity; first you enter and then you request information stored in some – building? Read on…
Short verbs in Swiss German (abstract)
In the German section of this blog (which is far bigger than the English one), I published a ten-part summary of my Master’s Thesis. Read on…
hover ≠ hoover
I never know which is which. One is sucking air in clinging to the floor, the other one is keeping air between itself and the floor. Read on…
Metaphors from around the globe
On Superlinguo I stumbled over some drawings from a celebration of International Mother Language Day. The idea is very simple but quite cool: share your favourite idiom! Read on…
Metaphors: same same but different
How cool does a place have to be so it’s hot? Read on…
The rules we don’t know we know
What’s so fascinating about language, anyway? Read on…