# lrb (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 3 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover lrb. Page: Feed: --- ## [How American Was Franklin’s English?](https://languagehat.com/how-american-was-franklins-english/) _2026-08-22 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Gary D. German’s Benjamin Franklin: Orthoepist and Phonetician has been published in open-access form (hurrah!); Vol. 1 is Language, Literacy and Social Mobility in Franklin’s World and Vol. 2 is Colonial American Voices and London Norms: Franklin’s Quest for an Orthographic Reform. The latter is full of details of Hattic interest: Part III is “A \[…\] ## [Coudenhove-Kalergi, Ventotene.](https://languagehat.com/coudenhove-kalergi-ventotene/) _2026-08-21 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Reading Ian Buruma’s New Yorker review/essay (archived) on the history of ideas of European integration, I was struck by a couple of names that turned out to have interesting backgrounds. First came “the half Japanese Austro-Hungarian Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi.” How could I not want to know more? The Wikipedia article made it even more \[…\] ## [Price Code.](https://languagehat.com/price-code/) _2026-08-20 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ I was scrolling down Facebook recently when I saw a post about scoring a copy of a book called Chamberpot and Motherfuck, and needless to say I dropped everything and investigated. I found a review by Nicholas Poole-Wilson (The Library, 19.1 \[March 2018\]: 94–96) of Chamberpot & Motherfuck: The Price-Codes of the Book Trade, by \[…\] ## [Faque.](https://languagehat.com/faque/) _2026-08-19 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Our Germany-dwelling Texas-bred friend Stuart Clayton alerted me to the existence of québecois faque, “eye dialect spelling of fait que,” which means “So, therefore, in that case.” Stu sez “Here’s a tie-up to France French ‘du coup’ which up until now I could never remember”: The word “faque” (also spelled “fak”) is a very common \[…\] ## [Secondary Source People.](https://languagehat.com/secondary-source-people/) _2026-08-18 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ David Hollingshead’s Humanists Have Done Nothing Wrong is basically a standard-issue defense of the humanities against the crazed attack of the modern-day right wing, but it starts from an interesting angle that I thought was worth investigating for its own sake: For many years, I’ve held a pet theory that cultural consumers can be grouped \[…\] ## [Aspic.](https://languagehat.com/aspic/) _2026-08-17 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ I have been alerted by a reader to an odd etymology: the word aspic, in the words of the OED “A savoury jelly made with meat stock; a cold dish consisting of such a jelly set in a mould and containing pieces of meat, seafood, or hard-boiled eggs,” is from French, and “Littré suggests its \[…\] ## [Scam(p(er))?](https://languagehat.com/scamper/) _2026-08-16 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Nitsuh Abebe, the new NY Times On Language columnist (see this post), has a new column (archived) on the word scam. Most of it is about how the word is more popular than ever and has expanded its remit to cover “any system, however legitimate, that ends with somebody profiting at your expense”; while mildly \[…\] ## [Kipnis.](https://languagehat.com/kipnis/) _2026-08-15 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ My local classical station played a piece featuring the once famous harpsichordist Igor Kipnis; my first thought, on hearing the ID, was He died quite a while back I wonder if anybody much below my age knows his name any more? Then came the second thought: Where s the name Kipnis from, anyhow? A Ukrainian \[ \] ## [Proto-Elamite in the Iranian Context.](https://languagehat.com/proto-elamite-in-the-iranian-context/) _2026-08-14 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ I m reading Kate Kelley’s Proto-Elamite: Writing and Society in Early Iran (see this post), and I thought this passage (pp. 15ff.) was of enough general interest to post: Throughout the twentieth century, the archaeology of early Iran has often been analysed through a filter of its western neighbour Mesopotamia (Petrie 2013; Alizadeh 2021). The invention \[ \] ## [PrintingFilms.](https://languagehat.com/printingfilms/) _2026-08-13 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ As regular readers will know, I am a sucker for old-fashioned printing one of the best parts of my job as a proofreader in a printing and design department in the 1980s (do such entities still exist?) was hanging out with printers and listening to them talk about the old days. PrintingFilms.com is a \[ \] ## [Every Channel. One Login. (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/oyPAC4PQE2PV) _2026-08-13 · **Sponsored**_ 17,000+ live channels, movies and sports on any device. Free trial, no IP lock. ## [Solidus.](https://languagehat.com/solidus/) _2026-08-12 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Mark Liberman s Log post inspired me to discuss the very interesting word solidus slash (mark). It developed from the name of a gold coin of the Roman Empire, which gave rise to the Latin name for a variety of medieval coins, mostly made of silver: Byzantine, Carolingian, Italian, and the one which concerns us \[ \] ## [Destructive AI.](https://languagehat.com/destructive-ai/) _2026-08-11 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ RNZ reports on yet another distressing development due to the AI craze: When a Wellington second-hand bookstore started to get bulk book orders, owner Anne-Marie Thorby smelt a rat. A Canadian buyer was sending multiple book orders to Book Haven in Newtown, sometimes minutes apart, for niche texts on New Zealand specific subjects. “It started \[ \] ## [Watergaw.](https://languagehat.com/watergaw/) _2026-08-10 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ My wife and I are watching the tenth season of Shetland (and looking forward to the eleventh, while mourning the recently announced departure of lead actress Alison O Donnell), and I was delighted to see that one of the characters, a craggy and mysterious poet named Ed Tulloch, runs a pub called The Watergaw. After the \[ \] ## [Immitigable.](https://languagehat.com/immitigable/) _2026-08-09 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ I greatly enjoyed Michael Ledger-Lomas s LRB review (23 July 2026; archived) of Converts: From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, Why So Many Became Catholic in the 20th Century by Melanie McDonagh, but I have to give him a whack on the knuckles for the absurd statement at the end of this passage about Frederick Rolfe: \[ \] ## [Joyce and Nationalism.](https://languagehat.com/joyce-and-nationalism/) _2026-08-08 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Terry Eagleton is usually a good read, and his LRB review (23 July 2026; archived) of Frank Callanan s James Joyce: A Political Life has some interesting thoughts on Joyce s relations with politics and modernism; he starts by explaining that Joyce, far from being indifferent to politics, was a loyal disciple of Charles Stewart Parnell, and \[ \] ## [Rhupunt.](https://languagehat.com/rhupunt/) _2026-08-07 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Michael Gilleland at Laudator Temporis Acti posted a quote from Patrick Kurp to highlight the erroneous Aristotle reference ( Perhaps he meant Poetics instead of Politics”), but I was struck by the word rhupunts. I m pretty sure I ve never run into it before; Britannica says: rhupunt, one of the 24 metres of the Welsh bardic tradition. \[ \] ## [Why “Alongside”?](https://languagehat.com/why-alongside/) _2026-08-06 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Ben Yagoda has a post about the recent rise in frequency of the word alongside: The American-born University of Sussex linguist Lynne Murphy recently remarked on her blog (Separated by A Common Language): “A few months ago, an American friend of my spouse asked him to ask me: ‘Why is everyone suddenly saying alongside?’” That \[ \] ## [1905: The Linguistic Renaissance.](https://languagehat.com/1905-the-linguistic-renaissance/) _2026-08-05 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Joel of Far Outliers has another goodie from Culture.pl, European Nationalist Revolts in 1905, quoting an article by Zachary Mazur; this is the bit I thought belonged here: For the next two years following the events of January 1905, protests and strikes broke out all over the Russian Empire. \[ \] In October, the tsar issued \[ \] ## [Whose Ox Is Gored.](https://languagehat.com/whose-ox-is-gored/) _2026-08-04 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ It popped into my head to wonder about the origin of the titular phrase: did it ascend to antiquity? Was its origin in the Greco-Roman classics, the Bible, ancient Sumer? Imagine my surprise when I turned to the OED (s.v. ox, entry revised 2005) and found: 1.c. Chiefly U.S. \[Apparently in allusion to a response \[ \] ## [Naoero.](https://languagehat.com/naoero/) _2026-08-03 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ I have been made aware that the small South Pacific country formerly known as Nauru has officially changed its name to Naoero (NY Times story). That is, of course, its right, but my immediate question is: how do you say the new name? The Times has this infuriating paragraph: How the new name is pronounced \[ \] ## [Chovy's Blog: Agentic Coding (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/W1tgS48uBjdj) _2026-08-03 · **Sponsored**_ Personal posts on agentic coding, moshcode CLI, and security findings. ## [Obstupefacting Excrescences.](https://languagehat.com/obstupefacting-excrescences/) _2026-08-02 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ I don t normally make separate posts for different reviews of the same book, but Colin Burrow s LRB review (9 July 2026; archived) of Arnoud Visser s On Pedantry has so little in common with Clare Bucknell s for the NYRB (LH), and it s so frabjously expressive in and of itself, that I can t resist presenting it on \[ \] ## [Yellow Dog.](https://languagehat.com/yellow-dog/) _2026-08-01 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ I hope at least some of y all are familiar with the W.C. Handy song Yellow Dog Blues ; if not, there are links to a couple of performances at the Mississippi Blues Travellers page Where The Southern Cross The Dog – Moorhead, Mississippi, one of those maniacally detailed investigations of historical/cultural backwaters that so appeal to \[ \] ## [Polish in Esperanto.](https://languagehat.com/polish-in-esperanto/) _2026-07-31 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Joel of Far Outliers has posted some excerpts of Mikołaj Gliński s contribution to a newsletter from Culture.pl, How much Polish is there in Esperanto?; it begins: The Slavic Esperanto lexicon is generally considered to derive from two Slavic languages, both of which Zamenhof knew very well – Russian and Polish. While Russian, as he later \[ \] ## [The Southern Necessity.](https://languagehat.com/the-southern-necessity/) _2026-07-30 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ Adrian Tahourdin s TLS review of Rebecca Lee s Rogues, Widows and Orphans: Mischief and misadventures in the world of books just keeps getting better: The title Rogues, Widows and Orphans is slightly misleading. Although rogues abound here, a book that was largely about typographical misfortunes would test the patience of most readers. The Oxford English Dictionary \[ \] ## [Verne Traduced.](https://languagehat.com/verne-traduced/) _2026-07-29 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ From Raymond N. MacKenzie s LRB review (9 July 2026; archived) of David Coward and William Butcher s new translation of Jules Verne, Journey to the Moon, some passages about how his publisher and his translators treated him: By the last decades​ of the 19th century, Jules Verne was less a writer than a brand – one \[ \] ## [Gen Z Constructions.](https://languagehat.com/gen-z-constructions/) _2026-07-28 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ From the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project comes Gen Z constructions: an overview: The goal of this page is to provide a brief, preliminary description of some Gen Z constructions that YGDP researchers are currently investigating. The judgments on this page are mostly from the respective researchers own intuition; little to no data has been formally \[ \] ## [Conjugating γράφω.](https://languagehat.com/conjugating-grapho/) _2026-07-27 · languagehat · languagehat.com_ The papyrus was published in 1940, but I hadn t seen it until now, and perhaps it will be new to you as well: A 3rd century papyrus conjugating γράφω in the indicative, posted the other day by Roger Pearse on his blog: Here is a truly fascinating item. It’s a leaf of papyrus from Oxyrhynchus. \[ \] ## [On Politics: The Andy Burnham show](https://williamdavies.blog/2026/07/02/on-politics-the-andy-burnham-show/) _2026-07-02 · willdavies · William Davies_ I joined James Butler and Patrick Maguire to discuss the transition of power in British politics, for the LRB On Politics Podcast. ## [‘Burnham’s Political Economy’](https://williamdavies.blog/2026/06/27/burnhams-political-economy/) _2026-06-27 · willdavies · William Davies_ An online early piece for the next issue of London Review of Books, on the economic constraints that will confront Andy Burnham as Prime Minister. ## [‘What training my chaotic dog taught me about power, control – and human beings’](https://williamdavies.blog/2026/06/26/what-training-my-chaotic-dog-taught-me-about-power-control-and-human-beings/) _2026-06-26 · willdavies · William Davies_ I have a Guardian Long Read on a surprising topic: my dog, and the struggle to train it. I’ve added some further reflections on the philosophical questions that drew me to write it on Substack. ## [Marketplace for AI-Powered Professionals (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/x7b3RK3Z07P7) _2026-06-26 · **Sponsored**_ Find professionals who use ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude to deliver work faster. ## [‘In Britain, the Far Right is setting the agenda’](https://williamdavies.blog/2026/06/18/in-britain-the-far-right-is-setting-the-agenda/) _2026-06-18 · willdavies · William Davies_ I’ve written for The New York Times about the mainstreaming of Far Right ideas, policies and narratives. ## [‘Looking back on PERC’](https://williamdavies.blog/2026/06/15/looking-back-on-perc/) _2026-06-15 · willdavies · William Davies_ This summer sees the closing of the Political Economy Research Centre that I helped found in 2014, and led ever since. In this blogpost, I reflect on the 12 year history of the Centre, and our efforts to analyse the times we were living through. ## [‘Easy to join, easy to leave’](https://williamdavies.blog/2026/05/08/easy-to-join-easy-to-leave/) _2026-05-08 · willdavies · William Davies_ I’ve reviewed Anton Jäger’s Hyperpolitics in the latest issue of the London Review of Books. ## [‘The state of the state’](https://williamdavies.blog/2026/04/28/the-state-of-the-state/) _2026-04-28 · willdavies · William Davies_ Over the last couple of years, I’ve been helping to coordinate members of the Economy & Society Editorial Board to produce a set of reflections on the changing face of ‘the state’. Following an event at UCL in February 2025 to prompt some short contributions, the journal has now published a combination of short pieces,... Continue Reading → ## [‘Tactical Voting’](https://williamdavies.blog/2026/03/11/tactical-voting/) _2026-03-11 · willdavies · William Davies_ Reflections on Britain’s Gorton & Denton by-election, and the fracturing of party politics in Britain, published in London Review of Books. ## [‘Why the right wins online’](https://williamdavies.blog/2025/11/14/why-the-right-wins-online/) _2025-11-14 · willdavies · William Davies_ I discussed the success of the Right online for the New Economics Foundation podcast, following my London Review of Books article about Farageist Tiktok ## [‘Facial recognitions’](https://williamdavies.blog/2025/10/04/facial-recognitions/) _2025-10-04 · willdavies · William Davies_ A new essay in The Ideas Letter on how the politics of the face has grown more fractious, in context of smartphones, face-covering bans, facial recognition algorithms, ICE agents and protest culture.