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January 31, 2021

Blog Update - January 31

Hello! I have been quite busy this month, but I have always striven to update at least once a month, so here's a fun late night post for you all. Some details: I am currently working a full time job, have a side hustle, going back to college... and doing this blog! Alas, something had to give, so I could not serve you fun linguistics stuff this month. This doesn't mean I wasn't working, just that nothing was ready.

By the by, isn't the form 'striven' interesting? I recently read that in languages with complex derivational morphology, some forms simply don't show up. And yet, children know how to fill in the paradigms. I'm not sure a language even needs to be all that complex for it to happen. How often do you ever use 'strive' in a perfect sentence? How about 'stride,' what is its past participle? "I had strode" is okay, but what about "I had stridden"? There's even a word "had strid." When do you ever get the chance to say "having stridden around the room..."?

I hope you're all able to stay safe. If we are lucky, we are seeing the light at the end of this coronavirus tunnel. I have one (1) COVID-related post coming up that I hope to get out before we have all been vaccinated. :) Nothing too serious, just a fun little construction I've seen out and about.

I had originally hoped to make more videos of my articles, but this has really been slowing down some of my progress, so I will be putting that plan on hold. At the very least, they won't come out the same day my articles come out. I love video, but the written word is my first love.

One pandemic-related change I've made is deciding to significantly drop my social media usage. I simply felt I wasn't getting enough out of it for the time I put in, and nowadays my time is a relatively scarce resource. I will still post and do updates on the blog, but I'm less likely to make original tweets. You can still contact me through email or @ me on Twitter - it may take me some time, but I'll get back to you!

- Karen