Consider the following dialogue, where the lines are numbered for ease of reference:

    A1:     What do you call a deer with no eyes?
    B1:     No idea.
    A2:     What do you call a motionless deer with no eyes?
    B2:     Still no idea.

1. Try to explain the source of humour in this dialogue. Don’t worry about using technical linguistics terms, if you’re not familiar with them. (We believe that anyone who gets a language play joke is able to explain it somehow, not just linguists!)
2. Does the language play in the dialogue hold for speakers of all varieties of English? For example, does the dialogue above result in humour in the variety of English that you speak? Why?

Hints. As is often the case, questions contain hints to their answers. Note that our second question mentions “speakers” (i.e. the play is on sound) and “varieties” (i.e. different varieties of a language may sound differently.)

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Next post: 25 May 2012.

The following data are from Malay:

    satu tikus  (‘one mouse’)             satu teksi  (‘one taxi’)
    dua tikus  (‘two mice’)                dua teksi  (‘two taxis’)
    tiga tikus  (‘three mice’)             tiga teksi  (‘three taxis’)

1. As far as noun plurals are concerned, would you say that Malay is a simpler, or more logical, or more economical language than, for example, English? Or vice versa?
2. And would you say that words like “simple”, “logical” or “economical” are useful words, in our descriptions of different languages?

Don’t forget to tell us why you think the way you do!

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Next post: 11 May 2012.

We heard this from a radio show host:

        “Thank you for arranging this evening tonight.”

Does this tell us anything interesting about the meanings of the English words evening and night?

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Next post: 27 April 2012.

This message reached our email inbox the other day:

    Warning!! The message titled “Make friends online” is a scam. Please
    don’t fall for it and pass it on!

How do you interpret the string “Please don’t fall for it and pass it on!”?
Would your interpretation match what the sender intended?

Tell us what you think!

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Next post: 13 April 2012.

Very young children, who have just started using words in their language(s), sometimes call all adult males “daddy” – which, incidentally, can be quite embarrassing.

1. Can you explain why the children would do this?
2. And would you have any suggestions for why calling all adult females “mummy” does not seem to be as common, among the same children?

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Next post: 30 March 2012.

Nursery rhymes have a way of enduring. Here is the first line of an English one:

        Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, ...

They endure in other languages too, of course. In Portuguese, for example, the equivalent rhyme starts Rei, capitão, soldado, ladrão, ... (‘King, captain, soldier, thief, ...’).

There must be something in the language that we use in rhymes that makes them “stick”, for generations and generations. What is it?

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Next post: 16 March 2012.

Suppose someone asks you how the weather has been where you are, and you answer in one of the two following ways:

(a) It’s a bit less cold today.
(b) It’s a bit warmer today.

Would you be giving a different answer in each case?

Tell us what you think.

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Next post: 2 March 2012.

You may be familiar with how the word smog came into the English language.
Would you say that these two words are formed in the same way that smog was?

1. gianormous
2. nincompetentpoop

Tell us why, and tell us about other examples (or non-examples!) of words formed like the English word smog, in any of your languages.

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Next post: 17 February 2012.

_ Is it so that only native speakers of English speak good English? Or that only native speakers of X speak good X?

Let us know your thoughts about this.

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Next post: 3 February 2012.

_ This line appeared in the latest edition of the Folio Society magazine.

Preparations for the 200th anniversary of Dickens’s birth in 2012 are gathering pace.

Do you find the placement of the phrase “in 2012” infelicitous? Why?

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Next post: 20 January 2012.