Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for July, 2009

coarticulation is not a design flaw

Posted in linguistics, phonology, tagged , , on 29 July 2009 | 6 Comments »

I’m just back from a talk* where it was argued that language is far from a perfect or optimal system, but something that happens to work, most of the time, in spite of being bodged together in a clumsy and inelegant way (it could never have been designed to be this way, but with a [...]

Read Full Post »

seven things

Posted in general on 22 July 2009 | 4 Comments »

Tagged by Berenike to give seven things I like and tag seven people.
I like:

a nice cup of tea
Belmont, St Andrew, St Kilda, and the plebby stuff they play on Classic FM
peace on the Lord’s Day
having work to do (the other six days)
Thomas Boston and his ilk
being finished with the thesis (much as I also liked [...]

Read Full Post »

really, spiritually

Posted in bible, calvinism, quotes on 15 July 2009 | 12 Comments »

How do they that worthily communicate in the Lord’s Supper feed upon the body and blood of Christ therein? (LC170) (With reference to this discussion.)
Answer unabridged: “As the body and blood of Christ are not corporally or carnally present in, with, or under the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper, and yet are spiritually [...]

Read Full Post »

by the way

Posted in general on 15 July 2009 | 5 Comments »

News in brief.

July 10th was actually the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. I no longer feel bad about missing people’s birthdays, considering I’ve been known to forget my own – so it’s nothing personal. But I’m not going to say any more about Calvin, as you can read all about him everywhere [...]

Read Full Post »

legal fiction, legal fact

Posted in general on 10 July 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Remember George Smeaton? One of his colleagues in the Free Church College was James Buchanan (1804-1870), Professor of Systematic Theology. Buchanan published various works, one of the most useful being the one simply titled The Doctrine of Justification.
Buchanan fully subscribed to the doctrine of the counter-imputation of sin and righteousness – that just as Adam’s [...]

Read Full Post »

puzzling

Posted in linguistics, phonology on 7 July 2009 | 4 Comments »

It’s terribly exciting, there’s not only a new issue of the Speculative Grammarian out (the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics), but it’s a bumper issue of linguistic puzzles, and there’s one that I can just about finish.
~~~
Each equation contains the initials of words that will make it correct. [...]

Read Full Post »