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For a journal that claims to be primarily a linkblog, there hasn't been much linkspam of late. Mea cupla.
A linguist dissects what, exactly, a passive verb/voice/clause is in English, with a clear and entertaining explanation of both why using a form of "to be" does not make it passive and how not all passives use "to be," not to mention why you might want to use it to highlight agency. Note that one of the tags is "Prescriptivist Poppyock."
OKCupid does still more interesting number-cruching, this time to find what are the best shallow first-date questions for determining compatability (via). I found the one for political orientation especially interesting, but they're all interesting, really.
As some of you may have noticed, The Atlantic hired the guy who created The Big Picture away from the Boston Globe (by promising him he'd only do that sort of thing, instead making him squeeze it in between the rest of his webmastering). The new feature is called In Focus, and one of his first installments is big, focused, stunning pictures of volcanoes from 2010. In the first one, the way ash sweeps away in the wind as it rains down from the cloud ...
Related to that, in that it's a bunch of cool photos: some strange and startling winter landscapes.
On climate change and who is denying it (via), using a smart penguin as the presenter.
---L.
A linguist dissects what, exactly, a passive verb/voice/clause is in English, with a clear and entertaining explanation of both why using a form of "to be" does not make it passive and how not all passives use "to be," not to mention why you might want to use it to highlight agency. Note that one of the tags is "Prescriptivist Poppyock."
OKCupid does still more interesting number-cruching, this time to find what are the best shallow first-date questions for determining compatability (via). I found the one for political orientation especially interesting, but they're all interesting, really.
As some of you may have noticed, The Atlantic hired the guy who created The Big Picture away from the Boston Globe (by promising him he'd only do that sort of thing, instead making him squeeze it in between the rest of his webmastering). The new feature is called In Focus, and one of his first installments is big, focused, stunning pictures of volcanoes from 2010. In the first one, the way ash sweeps away in the wind as it rains down from the cloud ...
Related to that, in that it's a bunch of cool photos: some strange and startling winter landscapes.
On climate change and who is denying it (via), using a smart penguin as the presenter.
---L.